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PASSAGES FROM THE FRENCH AND 
ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS 

OF 

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 
it 

VOL. II. 




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PASSAGES FEOM HAWTHOEM'S 

NOTE-BOOKS IN FRANCE AND 
ITALY. 



FLORENCE (CONTINUED). 




UNE 8 th. — I went this morning to the Uffizi 
gallery. The entrance is from the great court 
of the palace, which communicates with Lung' 
Arno at one end, and with the Grand Ducal Piazza at 
the other. The gallery is in the upper story of the 
palace, and in the vestibule are some busts of the 
princes and cardinals of the Medici family, — none of 
them beautiful, one or two so ugly as to be ludicrous, 
especially one who is all but buried in his own wig. I 
at first travelled slowly through the whole extent of this 
long, long gallery, which occupies the entire length of 
the palace on both sides of the court, and is full of 
sculpture and pictures. The latter, being opposite to 
the light, are not seen to the best advantage ; but it 
is the most perfect collection, in a chronological series, 
that I have seen, comprehending specimens of all the 
masters since painting began to be an art. Here ^ are 



6 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858 

Giotto, and Cimabue, and Botticelli, and Era Angelico, 
and Pilippo Lippi, and a hundred others, who havtf 
haunted me in churches and galleries ever since I have 
been in Italy, and who ought to interest me a great dea? 
more than they do. Occasionally to-day I was sensible 
of a certain degree of emotion in looking at an old 
picture ; as, for example, by a large, dark, ugly picture? 
of Christ bearing the cross and sinking beneath it, when, 
somehow or other, a sense of his agony, and the fearful 
wrong that mankind did (and does) its Redeemer, and 
the scorn of his enemies, and the sorrow of those who 
loved him, came knocking at my heart and got entrance 
there. Once more I deem it a pity that Protestantism 
should have entirely laid aside this mode of appealing to 
the religious sentiment. 

I chiefly paid attention to the sculpture, and was 
interested in a long series of busts of the emperors and 
the members of their families, and some of the great 
men of Rome. There is a bust of Pompey the Great, 
bearing not the slightest resemblance to that vulgar and 
unintellectual one in the gallery of the Capitol, alto- 
gether a different cast of countenance. I could not 
judge whether it resembled the face of the statue, 
having seen the latter so imperfectly in the duskiness of 
the hall of the Spada Palace. These, I presume, are 
the busts which Mr. Powers condemns, from internal 
evidence, as unreliable and conventional. He may be 
right, — and is far more likely, of course, to be right 
than I am, — yet there certainly seems to be character 
in these marble faces, and they differ as much among 
themselves as the same number of living faces might. 
The bust of Caracalla, however, which Powers excepted 
from his censure, certainly does give stronger assurance 
of its being an individual and faithful portrait than any 



1858.] ITALY. 7 

other in the series. All the busts of Caracalla — of 
which I have seen many — give the same evidence of 
their truth ; and I should like to know what it was in 
this abominable emperor that made him insist upon 
having his actual likeness perpetuated, with all the ugli- 
ness of its animal and moral character. I rather respect 
him for it, and still more the sculptor, whose hand, me- 
thinks, must have trembled as he wrought the bust. 
Generally these wicked old fellows, and their wicked 
wives and daughters, are not so hideous as we might- 
expect. Messalina, for instance, has small and pretty 
features, though with rather a sensual development of the 
lower part of the face. The busts, it seemed to me, are 
usually superior as works of art to those in the Capitol, 
and either better preserved or more thoroughly restored. 
The bust of Nero might almost be called handsome here, 
though bearing his likeness unmistakably. 

I wish some competent person would undertake to 
analyze and develop his character, and how and by what 
necessity — with all his elegant tastes, his love of the 
beautiful, his artist nature — he grew to be such a mon- 
ster. Nero has never yet had justice done him, nor have 
any of the wicked emperors ; not that I suppose them to 
have been any less monstrous than history represents 
them ; but there must surely have been something in 
their position and circumstances to render the terrible 
moral disease which seized upon them so generally almost 
inevitable. A wise and profound man, tender and rev- 
erent of the human soul, and capable of appreciating it 
in its height and depth, has a great field here for the 
exercise of his powers. It has struck me, in reading the 
history of the Italian republics, that many of the tyrants, 
who sprung up after the destruction of their liberties, 
resembled the worst of the Roman emperors. The sub- 



8 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

ject of Nero and his brethren has often perplexed me 
with vain desires to come at the truth. 

There were many beautiful specimens of antique, ideal 
sculpture all along the gallery, — Apollos, Bacchuses, 
Yenuses, Mercurys, Pauns, — with the general character 
of all of which I was familiar enough to recognize them 
at a glance. The mystery and wonder of the gallery, 
however, the Yenus de' Medici, I could nowhere see, and 
indeed was almost afraid to see it ; for I somewhat appre- 
hended the extinction of another of those lights that 
shine along a man's pathway, and go out in a snuff the 
instant he comes within eyeshot of the fulfilment of his 
hopes. My European experience has extinguished many 
such. I was pretty well contented, therefore, not to 
find the famous statue in the whole of my long journey 
from end to end of the gallery, which terminates on the 
opposite side of the court from that where it commences. 
The ceiling, by the by, through the entire length, is cov- 
ered with frescos, and the floor paved with a composi- 
tion of stone smooth and polished like marble. The 
final piece of sculpture, at the end of the gallery, is a 
copy of the* Laocoon, considered very fine. I know 
not why, but it did not impress me with the sense 
of mighty and terrible repose — a repose growing out 
of the infinitude of trouble — that I had felt in the 
original. 

Parallel with the gallery, on both sides of the palace- 
court, there runs a series of rooms devoted chiefly to 
pictures, although statues and bas-reliefs are. likewise 
contained in some of them. I remember an unfinished 
bas-relief by Michael Angelo of a Holy Family, which I 
touched with my finger, because it seemed as if he might 
have been at work upon it only an hour ago. The pic- 
tures I did little more than glance at, till I had almost 



1858.] ITALY. 9 

completed again the circuit of the gallery, through this 
series of parallel rooms, and then I came upon a collec- 
xion of French and Dutch and Flemish masters, all of 
which interested me more than the Italian generally. 
There was a beautiful picture by Claude, almost as good 
as those in the British National Gallery, and very like in 
subject ; the sun near the horizon, of course, and throw- 
ing its line of light over the ripple of water, with ships 
at the strand, and one or two palaces of stately archi- 
tecture on the shore. Landscapes by Rembrandt ; fat 
Graces and other plump nudities by Rubens ; brass pans 
and earthen pots and herrings by Teniers and other 
Dutchmen ; none by Gerard Douw, I think, but several 
by Mieris ; all of which were like bread and beef and ale, 
after having been fed too long on made dishes. This is 
really a wonderful collection of pictures ; and from first 
to last — from Giotto to the men of yesterday — they are 
in admirable condition, and may be appreciated for all the 
merit that they ever possessed. 

I could not quite believe that I was not to find the 
Venus de' Medici ; and still, as I passed from one room 
to another, my breath rose and fell a little, with the half- 
hope, half-fear, that she might stand before me. Really, 
I did not know that I cared so much about Venus, or 
any possible woman of marble. At last, when I had 
come from among the Dutchmen, I believe, and was look- 
ing at some works of Italian artists, chiefly Florentines, 
I caught a glimpse of her through the door of the next 
room. It is the best room of the series, octagonal in 
shape, and hung with red damask, and the light comes 
down from a row of windows, passing quite round, be- 
neath an octagonal dome. The Venus stands somewhat 
aside from the centre of the room, and is surrounded 
by an iron railing, a pace or two from her pedestal 
1* 



10 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

in front, and less behind. I think she might safely be 
left to the reverence her womanhood would win, with- 
out any other protection. She is very beautiful, very 
satisfactory ; and has a fresh and new charm about her 
unreached by any cast or copy. The hue of the mar- 
ble is just so much mellowed by time, as to do for her 
all that Gibson tries, or ought to try to do for his statues 
by color, softening her, warming her almost impercep- 
tibly, making her an inmate of the heart, as well as a 
spiritual existence. I felt a kind of tenderness for her ; 
an affection, not as if she were one woman, but all wo- 
manhood in one. Her modest attitude, which, before I 
saw her I had not liked, deeming that it might be an ar- 
tificial shame, is partly what unmakes her as the heathen 
goddess, and softens her into woman. There is a slight 
degree of alarm, too, in her face; not that she really 
thinks anybody is looking at her, yet the idea has flitted 
through her mind, and startled her a little. Her face is 
so beautiful and intellectual, that it is not dazzled out of 
sight by her form. Methinks this was a triumph for the 
sculptor to achieve. I may as well stop here. It is of 
no use to throw heaps of words upon her ; for they all 
fall away, and leave her standing in chaste and naked 
grace, as untouched as when I began. 

She has suffered terribly by the mishaps of her long 
existence in the marble. Each of her legs has been broken 
into two or three fragments, her arms have been severed, 
her body has been broken quite across at the waist, her 
head has been snapped off at the neck. Furthermore, 
there have been grievous wounds and losses of substance 
in various tender parts of her person. But on account 
of the skill with which the statue has been restored, and 
also because the idea is perfect and indestructible, all 
these injuries do not in the lea?t impair the effect, even 



1858.] ITALY. 11 

when you see where the dissevered fragments have been 
reunited. She is just as whole as when she left the 
hands of the sculptor. I am glad to have seen this 
Venus, and to have found her so tender and so chaste. 
On the wall of the room, and to be taken in at the same 
glance, is a painted Venus by Titian, reclining on a couch, 
naked and lustful. 

The room of the Venus seems to be the treasure-place 
of the whole Uffizi Palace, containing more pictures by 
famous masters than are to be found in all the rest of the 
gallery. There were several by Raphael, and the room 
was crowded with the easels of artists. I did not look 
half enough at anything, but merely took a preliminary 
.taste, as a prophecy of enjoyment to come. 

As we were at dinner to-day, at half past three, there 
was a ring at the door, and a minute after our servant 
brought a card. It was Mr. Robert Browning's, and on 
it was written in pencil an invitation for us to go to see 
them this evening. He had. left the card and gon^e away ; 
but very soon the bell rang again, and he had come back, 
having forgotten to give his address. This time he came 
in; and he shook hands with all of us, children and 
grown people, and was very vivacious and agreeable. 
He looked younger and even handsomer than when I 
saw him in London, two years ago, and his gray hairs 
seemed fewer than those that had then strayed into his 
youthful head. He talked a wonderful quantity in a little 
time, and told us — among other things that we should 
never have dreamed of — that Italian people will not 
cheat you, if you construe them generously, and put 
them upon their honor. 

Mr. Browning was very kind and warm in his expres- 
sions of pleasure at seeing us; and, on our part, we 
were all very glad to meet him. He must be an exceed- 



12 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

ingly likable man They are to leave Florence 

very soon, and are going to Normandy, I think he said, 
for the rest of the summer. 

The Venus de' Medici has a dimple in her chin. 

June 9tA. — We went last evening, at eight o'clock, 
to see the Brownings ; and, after some search and in- 
quiry, we found the Casa Guidi, which is a palace in a 
street not very far from our own. It being dusk, I 
could not see the exterior, which, if I remember, Brown- 
ing has celebrated in song ; at all events, Mrs. Browning 
has called one of her poems " Casa Guidi Windows." 

The street is a narrow one ; but on entering the pal- 
ace, we found a spacious staircase and ample accommo- 
dations of vestibule and hall, the latter opening on a 
balcony, where we could hear the chanting of priests in a 
church close by. Browning told us that this was the 
first church where an oratorio had ever been performed. 
He came into the anteroom to greet us, as did his little 
boy, Robert, whom they call Pennini for fondness. The 
latter cognomen is a diminutive of Apennino, which was 
bestowed upon him at his first advent into the world be- 
cause he was so very small, there being a statue in Flor- 
ence of colossal size called Apennino. I never saw such 
a boy as this before ; so slender, fragile, and spirit-like, 
— not as if he were actually in ill health, but as if he had 
little or nothing to do with human flesh and blood. His 
face is very pretty and most intelligent, and exceedingly 
like his mother's. He is nine years old, and seems at 
once less childlike and less manly than would befit that 
age. I should not quite like to be the father of such a 
boy, and should fear to stake so much interest and affec- 
tion on him as he cannot fail to inspire. I wonder what 
is to become of him, — whether he will ever grow to be 



1858.] ITALY. 13 

a man, — whether it is desirable that he should. His 
parents ought to turn their whole attention to making 
him robust and earthly, and to giving him a thicker scab- 
bard to sheathe his spirit in. He was born in Florence, 
and prides himself on being a Florentine, and is indeed 
as un-English a production as if he were native of another 
planet. 

Mrs. Browning met us at the door of the drawing- 
room, and greeted us most kindly, — a pale, small 
person, scarcely embodied at all ; at any rate, only 
substantial enough to put forth her slender fingers to be 
grasped, and to speak witli a shrill, yet sweet, tenuity of 
voice. Really, I do not see how Mr. Browning can sup- 
pose that he has an earthly wife any more than an earthly 
child ; both are of the elfin race, and will flit away from 
him some day when he least thinks of it. She is a good 
and kind fairy, however, and sweetly disposed towards 
the human race, although only remotely akin to it. It is 
wonderful to see how small she is, how pale her cheek, 
how bright and dark her eyes. There is not such another 
figure in the world ; and her black ringlets cluster down 
into her neck, and make her face look the whiter by their 
sable profusion. I could not form any judgment about 
her age ; it may range anywhere within the limits of hu- 
man life or elfin life. When I met her in London at 
Lord Houghton's breakfast-table, she did not impress me 
so singularly ; for the morning light is more prosaic than 
the dim illumination of their great tapestried drawing- 
room ; and besides, sitting next to her, she did not have 
occasion to raise her voice in speaking, and I was not 
sensible what a slender voice she has. It is marvellous 
to me how so extraordinary, so acute, so sensitive a crea- 
ture can impress us, as she does, with the certainty of 
her benevolence. It seems to me there were a million 



14 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

chances to one that she would have been a miracle of 
acidity and bitterness. 

We were not the only guests. Mr. and Mrs. E , 

Americans, recently from the East, and on intimate 
terms with the Brownings, arrived after us; also Miss E. 
H , an English literary lady, whom I have met sev- 
eral times in Liverpool ; and lastly came the white head 

and palmer-like beard of Mr. with his daughter. 

Mr. Browning was very efficient in keeping up conversa- 
tion with everybody, and seemed to be in all parts of the 
room and in every group at the same moment ; a most vivid 
and quick-thoughted person, logical and common-sensi- 
ble, as, I presume, poets generally are in their daily talk. 

Mr. , as usual, was homely and plain of manner, 

with an old-fashioned dignity, nevertheless, and a remark- 
able deference and gentleness of tone in addressing Mrs. 
Browning. I doubt, however, whether he has any high 
appreciation either of her poetry or her husband's, and it 
is my impression that they care as little about his. 

We had some tea and some strawberries, and passed a 
pleasant evening. There was no very noteworthy con- 
versation ; the most interesting topic being that disagree- 
able and now wearisome one of spiritual communications, 
as regards which Mrs. Browning is a believer, and her 

husband an infidel. Mr. appeared not to have made 

up his mind on the matter, but told a story of a success- 
ful communication between Cooper the novelist and his 
sister, who had been dead fifty years. Browning and his 
wife had both been present at a spiritual session held by 
Mr. Hume, and had seen and felt the unearthly hands, 
one of which had placed a laurel wreath on Mrs. Brown- 
ing's head. Browning, however, avowed his belief that 
these hands were affixed to the feet of Mr. Hume, who 
lay extended in his chair, with his legs stretched far 



1858.] ITALY. 15 

under the table. Tlie marvellousness of the fact, as I 
have read of it, and heard it from other eye-witnesses, 
melted strangely away in his hearty gripe, and at the 
sharp touch of his logic ; while his wife, ever and anon, 
put in a little gentle word of expostulation. 

I am rather surprised that Browning's conversation 
should be so clear, and so much to the purpose at the 
moment, since his poetry can seldom proceed far without 
running into the high grass of latent meanings and ob- 
scure allusions. 

Mrs. Browning's health does not permit late hours, so 
we began to take leave at about ten o'clock. I heard 

her ask Mr. if he did not mean to revisit Europe, 

and heard him answer, not uncheerfully, taking hold of 
his white hair, " It is getting rather too late in the even- 
ing now." If any old age can be cheerful, I should 
think his might be ; so good a man, so cool, so calm, so 
bright, too, we may say. His life has been like the days 
that end in pleasant sunsets. He has a great loss, how- 
ever, or what ought to be a great loss, — soon to be en- 
countered in the death of his wife, who, I think, can 
hardly live to reach America. He is not eminently an 
affectionate man. I take him to be one who cannot get 
closely home to his sorrow, nor feel it so sensibly as he 
gladly would ; and, in consequence of that deficiency, the 
world lacks substance to him. It is partly the result, 
perhaps, of his not having sufficiently cultivated his emo- 
tional nature. His poetry shows it, and his personal 
intercourse, though kindly, does not stir one's blood in 
the least. 

Little Pennini, during the evening, sometimes helped 
the guests to cake and strawberries ; joined in the con- 
versation, when he had anything to say, or sat down 
upon a couch to enjoy his own meditations. He has 



16 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

long curling hair, and lias not yet emerged from his 
frock and short hose. It is fanny to think of putting 
him into trousers. His likeness to his mother is strange 
to behold. 

June 10^. — My wife and I went to the Pitti Palace 
to-day; and first entered a court where, yesterday, she 
had seen a carpet of flowers, arranged for some great 
ceremony. It must have been a most beautiful sight, 
the pavement of the court being entirely covered by 
them, in a regular pattern of brilliant hues, so as really 
to be a living mosaic. This morning, however, the court 
had nothing but its usual stones, and the show of yester- 
day seemed so much the more inestimable as having been 
so evanescent. Around the walls of the court there 
were still some pieces of splendid tapestry which had 
made part of yesterday's magnificence. We went up the 
staircase, of regally broad and easy ascent, and made 
application to be admitted to see the grand-ducal apart- 
ments. An attendant accordingly took the keys, and 
ushered us first into a great hall with a vaulted ceiling, 
and then through a series of noble rooms, with rich fres- 
cos above and mosaic floors, hung with damask, adorned 
with gilded chandeliers, and glowing, in short, with more 
gorgeousness than I could have imagined beforehand, or 
can now remember. In many of the rooms were those 
superb antique cabinets which I admire more than any 
other furniture ever invented ; only these were of unex- 
ampled art and glory, inlaid with precious stones, and 
with beautiful Florentine mosaics, both of flowers and 
landscapes, — each cabinet worth a lifetime's toil to make 
it, and the cost a whole palace to pay for it. Many of the 
rooms were covered with arras, of landscapes, hunting- 
scenes, mythological subjects, or historical scenes, equal 



185S.] ITALY. 17 

to pictures in truth of representation, and possessing an 
indescribable richness that makes them preferable as a 
mere adornment of princely halls and chambers. Some 
of the rooms, as I have said, were laid in mosaic of stone 
and marble, otherwise in lovely patterns of various 
woods ; others were covered with carpets, delightful to 
tread upon, and glowing like the living floor of flowers 
which my wife saw yesterday. There were tables, too, 
of Florentine mosaic, the mere materials of which — 
lapis lazuli, malachite, pearl, and a hundred other pre- 
cious things — were worth a fortune, and made a thou- 
sand times more valuable by the artistic skill of the man- 
ufacturer. I toss together brilliant words by the handful, 
and make a rude sort of patchwork, but can record no 
adequate idea of what I saw in this suite of rooms ; 
and the taste, the subdued splendor, so that it did not 
shine too high, but was all tempered into an effect at 
once grand and soft, — this was quite as remarkable as 
the gorgeous material. I have seen a very dazzling 
effect produced in the principal cabin of an American 
clipper-ship quite opposed to this in taste. 

After making the circuit of the grand-ducal apart- 
ments, we went into a door in the left wing of the 
palace, and ascended a narrow flight of stairs, — several 
tortuous flights indeed, — to the picture-gallery. It fills 
a great many stately halls, which themselves are well 
worth a visit for the architecture and frescos ; only these 
matters become commonplace after travelling through a 
mile or two of them. The collection of pictures — as 
well for their number as for the celebrity and excellence 
of many of them — is the most interesting that I have 
seen, and I do not yet feel in a condition, nor perhaps 
ever shall, to speak of a single one. It gladdened my 
very heart to find that they were not darkened out of 



18 French and Italian note-books. [1858. 

sight, nor apparently at all injured by time, but were 
well kept and varnished, brilliantly framed, and, no 
doubt, restored by skilful touches if any of them needed 
it. The artists and amateurs may say what they like ; 
for my part, I know no drearier feeling than that in- 
spired by a ruined picture, — ruined, that is, by time, 
damp, or rough treatment, — and I would a thousand 
times rather an artist should do his best towards reviv- 
ing it, than have it left in such a condition. I do not 
believe, however, that these pictures have been sacri- 
legiously interfered with; at all events, I saw in the 
masterpieces no touch but what seemed worthy of the 
master-hand. 

The most beautiful picture in the world, I am con- 
vinced, is Raphael's " Madonna della Seggiola." I was 
familiar with it in a hundred engravings and copies, and 
therefore it shone upon me as with a familiar beauty, 
though infinitely more divine than I had ever seen it 
before. An artist was copying it, and producing cer- 
tainly something very like a fac-simile, yet leaving out, 
as a matter of course, that mysterious something that 
renders the picture a miracle. It is my present opinion 
that the pictorial art is capable of something more like 
magic, more wonderful and inscrutable in its methods, 
than poetry or any other mode of developing the beau- 
tiful. But how does this accord with what I have been 
saying only a minute ago ? How then can the decayed 
picture of a great master ever be restored by the touches 
of an inferior hand? Doubtless it never can be re- 
stored ; but let some devoted worshipper do his utmost, 
and the whole inherent spirit of the divine picture may 
pervade his restorations likewise. 

I saw the " Three Fates " of Michael Angelo, which 
were also being copied, as were many other of the 



1858.] ITALY. 19 

best pictures. Miss Fanny Howorth, whom I met 
in the gallery, told me that to copy the " Madonna 
della Seggiola," application must be made five years 
beforehand, so many are the artists who aspire to copy 
it. Michael Angelo's Fates are three very grim and 
pitiless old women, who respectively spin, hold, and cut 
the thread of human destiny, all in a mood of sombre 
gloom, but with no more sympathy than if they had 
nothing to do with us. I remember seeing an etching 
of this when I was a child, and being struck, even then, 
with the terrible, stern, passionless severity, neither lov- 
ing us nor hating us, that characterizes these ugly old 
women. If they were angry, or had the least spite 
against human kind, it would render them the more 
tolerable. They are a great work, containing and rep- 
resenting the very idea that makes a belief in fate such 
a cold torture to the human soul. God give me the 
sure belief in his Providence ! 

In a year's time, with the advantage of access to this 
magnificent gallery, I think I might come to have some 
little knowledge of pictures. At present I still know 
nothing ; but am glad to find myself capable, at least, of 
loving one picture better than another. I cannot always 
" keep the heights I gain," however, and after admiring 
and being moved by a picture one day, it is within my 
experience to look at it the next as little moved as if 
it were a tavern-sign. It is pretty much the same with 
statuary ; the same, too, with those pictured windows of 
the Duomo, which I described so rapturously a few days 
ago. I looked at them again the next morning, and 
thought they would have been hardly worthy of my eulo- 
gium, even had all the separate windows of the cathe- 
dral combined their narrow lights into one grand, re- 
splendent, many-colored arch at the eastern end. It is a 



£0 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

pity they are so narrow. England has many a great 
chancel- window that, though dimmer in its hues, dusty, 
and perhaps made up of heterogeneous fragments, eclipses 
these by its spacious breadth. 

From the gallery, I went into the Boboli Gardens, 
which are contiguous to the palace ; but found them 
too sunny for enjoyment. They seem to consist partly 
of a wilderness ; but the portion into which I strayed was 
laid out with straight walks, lined with high box-hedges, 
along which there was only a narrow margin of shade. 
I saw an amphitheatre, with a wide sweep of marble seat 
around it, enclosing a grassy space, where, doubtless, the 
Medici may have witnessed splendid spectacles. 

June 11th. — I paid another visit to the Uffizi gallery 
this morning, and found that the Yenus is one of the 
things the charm of which does not diminish on better 
acquaintance. The world has not grown weary of her in 
all these ages ; and mortal man may look on her with 
new delight from infancy to old age, and keep the mem- 
ory of her, I should imagine, as one of the treasures of 
spiritual existence hereafter. Surely, it makes me more 
ready to believe in the high destinies of the human race, 
to think that this beautiful form is but nature's plan for 
all womankind, and that the nearer the actual woman 
approaches it, the more natural she is. I do not, and 
cannot think of her as a senseless image, but as a being 
that lives to gladden the world, incapable of decay and 
death ; as young and fair to-day as she was three thou- 
sand years ago, and still to be young and fair as long as 
a beautiful thought shall require physical embodiment. 
I wonder how any sculptor has had the impertinence to 
aim at any other presentation of female beauty. I mean 
no disrespect to Gibson or Powers, or a hundred other 



1858.] ITALY. 21 

men who people the world with nudities, all of which 
are abortions as compared with her ; but 1 think the 
world would be all the richer if their Venuses, their 
Greek Slaves, their Eves, were burnt into quicklime, 
leaving us only this statue as our image of the beautiful. 
I observed to-day that the eyes of the statue are slightly 
hollowed out, in a peculiar way, so as to give them a 
look of depth and intelligence. She is a miracle. The 
sculptor must have wrought religiously, and have felt 
that something far beyond his own skill was working 
through his hands. I mean to leave off speaking of the 
Venus hereafter, in utter despair of saying what I wish ; 
especially as the contemplation of the statue will refine 
and elevate my taste, and make it continually more diffi- 
cult to express my sense of its excellence, as the percep- 
tion of it grows upon me. If at any time I become less 
sensible of it, it will be my deterioration, not any defect 
in the statue. 

I looked at many of the pictures, and found myself in 
a favorable mood for enjoying them. It seems to me 
that a work of art is entitled to credit for all that it 
makes us feel in our best moments ; and we must judge 
of its merits by the impression it then makes, and not 
by the coldness and insensibility of our less genial moods. 

After leaving the Uffizi Palace, .... I went into the 
Museum of Natural History, near the Pitti Palace. It 
is a very good collection of almost everything that Na- 
ture has made, — or exquisite copies of what she has 
made, — stones, shells, vegetables, insects, fishes, ani- 
mals, man; the greatest wonders of the museum being 
some models in wax of all parts of the human frame. It 
is good to have the wholeness and summed-up beauty of 
woman in the memory, when looking at the details of her 
system as here displayed ; for these last, to the natural 



22 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

eye, are by no means beautiful. But they are what 
belong only to our mortality. The beauty that makes 
them invisible is our immortal type, which we shall take 
away with us. Under glass cases, there were some 
singular and horribly truthful representations, in small 
wax figures, of a time of pestilence ; the hasty burial, 
or tossing into one common sepulchre, of discolored 
corpses, — a very ugly piece of work, indeed. I think 
Murray says that these things were made for the Grand 
Duke Cosmo ; and if so, they do him no credit, indicating 
something dark and morbid in his character. 



13^. — We called at the Powers's yesterday 

morning to leave R there for an hour or two to play 

with the children ; and it being not yet quite time for 
the Pitti Palace, we stepped into the studio. Soon Mr. 
Powers made his appearance, in his dressing-gown and 

slippers and sculptor's cap, smoking a cigar He 

was very cordial and pleasant, as I have always found 
him, and began immediately to be communicative about 
his own works, or any other subject that came up. There 
were two casts of the Venus de' Medici in the rooms, 
which he said were valuable in a commercial point of 
view, being genuine casts from the mould taken from the 
statue. He then gave us a quite unexpected but most 
interesting lecture on the Yenus, demonstrating it, as he 
proceeded, by reference to the points which he criticised. 
The figure, he seemed to allow, was admirable, though I 
think he hardly classes it so high as his own Greek Slave 
or Eva ; but the face, he began with saying, was that of 
an idiot. Then, leaning on the pedestal of the cast, he 
continued, " It is rather a bold thing to say, is n't it, 
that the sculptor of the Venus de' Medici did not know 
what he was about ? " 



1858.] ITALY. 23 

Truly, it appeared to me so ; but Powers went on 
remorselessly, and showed, in the first place, that the 
eye was not like any eye that Nature ever made ; and, 
indeed, being examined closely, and abstracted from the 
rest of the face, it has a very queer look, — less like a 
human eye than a half-worn buttonhole! Then he at- 
tacked the ear, which, he affirmed and demonstrated, 
was placed a good deal too low on the head, thereby 
giving an artificial and monstrous height to the portion 
of the head above it. The forehead met with no better 
treatment in his hands, and as to the mouth, it was al- 
together wrong, as well in its general make as in such 
niceties as the junction of the skin of the lips to the com- 
mon skin around them. In a word, the poor face was 
battered all to pieces and utterly demolished ; nor was 
it possible to doubt or question that it fell by its own 
demerits. All that could be urged in its defence — and 
even that I did not urge — being that this very face had 
affected me, only the day before, with a sense of higher 
beauty and intelligence than I had ever then received 
from sculpture, and that its expression seemed to accord 
with that of the whole figure, as if it were the sweetest 
note of the same music. There must be something in 
this ; the sculptor disregarded technicalities, and the im- 
itation of actual nature, the better to produce the effect 
which he really does produce, in somewhat the same 
way as a painter works his magical illusions by touches 
that have no relation to the truth if looked at from 
the wrong point of view. But Powers considers it 
certain that the antique sculptor had bestowed all his 
care on the study of the human figure, and really did 
not know how to make a face. I myself used to think 
that the face was a much less important thing with the 
Greeks, among whom the entire beauty of the form was 



24 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

familiarly seen, than with ourselves, who allow no other 
nudity. 

After annihilating the poor visage, Powers showed us 
his two busts of Proserpine and Psyche, and continued 
his lecture by showing the truth to nature with which 
these are modelled. I freely acknowledge the fact; 
there is no sort of comparison to be made between the 
beauty, intelligence, feeling, and accuracy of representa- 
tion in these two faces and in that of the Venus de' 
Medici. A light — the light of a soul proper to each 
individual character — seems to shine from the interior 
of the marble, and beam forth from the features, chiefly 
from the eyes. Still insisting upon the eye, and hitting 
the poor Yenus another and another and still another 
blow on that unhappy feature, Mr. Powers turned up 
and turned inward and turned outward his own Titanic 
orb, — the biggest, by far, that ever I saw in mortal 
head, — and made us see and confess that there was 
nothing right in the Venus and everything right in 
Psyche and Proserpine. To say the truth, their marble 
eyes have life, and, placing yourself in the proper posi- 
tion towards them, you can meet their glances., and feel 
them mingle with your own. Powers is a great man, 
and also a tender and delicate one, massive and rude 
of surface as he looks ; and it is rather absurd to feel 
how he impressed his auditor, for the time being, with 
his own evident idea that nobody else is worthy to touch 

marble. Mr. B ■ told me that Powers has had many 

difficulties on professional grounds, as I understood 
him, and with his brother artists. No wonder ! He 
has said enough in my hearing to put him at swords* 
points with sculptors of every epoch and every degree 
between the two inclusive extremes of Phidias and Clark 
Mills. 



1858.] ITALY. 25 

He has a bust of the reigning Grand Duchess of Tus- 
cany, who sat to him for it. The bust is that of a noble- 
looking lady ; and Powers remarked that royal person- 
ages have a certain look that distinguishes them from 
other people, and is seen in individuals of no lower rank. 
They all have it ; the Queen of England and Prince Al- 
bert have it ; and so likewise has every other Royalty, 
although the possession of this kingly look implies noth- 
ing whatever as respects kingly and commanding qualities. 
He said that none of our public men, whatever authority 
they may have held, or for whatever length of time, possess 
this look, but he added afterwards that Washington had it. 
Commanders of armies sometimes have it, but not in the 
degree that royal personages do. It is, as well as I could 
make out Powers's idea, a certain coldness of demeanor, 
and especially of eye, that surrounds them with an atmos- 
phere through which the electricity of human brother- 
hood cannot pass. Prom their youth upward they are 
taught to feel themselves apart from the rest of mankind, 
and this manner becomes a second nature to them in 
consequence, and as a safeguard to their conventional dig- 
nity. They put themselves under glass, as it were (the 
illustration is my own), so that, though you see them, 
and see them looking no more noble and dignified than 
other mortals, nor so much so as many, still they keep 
themselves within a sort of sanctity, and repel you by an 
invisible barrier. Even if they invite you with a show of 
warmth and hospitality, you cannot get through. 1, too, 
recognize this look in the portraits of Washington ; in 
him, a mild, benevolent coldness and apartness, but in- 
dicating that formality which seems to have been deeper 
in him than in any other mortal, and which built up 
an actual fortification between himself and human sym- 
pathy. I wish, for once, Washington could come out 

VOL. II. 2 



26 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

of his envelopment and snow ns what his real dimensions 
were. 

Among other models of statues heretofore made, Pow. 
ers showed us one of Melancholy, or rather of Contem. 
plation, from Milton's " Penseroso " ; a female figure 
with uplifted face and rapt look, "communing with the 
skies." It is very fine, and goes deeply into Milton's 
thought ; but, as far as the outward form and action are 
concerned, I remember seeing a rude engraving in my 
childhood that probably suggested the idea. It was pre- 
fixed to a cheap American edition of Milton's poems, and 
was probably as familiar to Powers as to myself. It is 
very remarkable how difficult it seems to be to strike out 
a new attitude in sculpture ; a new group, or a new 
single figure. 

One piece of sculpture Powers exhibited, however, 
which was very exquisite, and such as I never saw be- 
fore. Opening a desk, he took out something carefully 
enclosed between two layers of cotton- wool, on removing 
which there appeared a little baby's hand most delicately 
represented in the whitest marble ; all the dimples where 
the knuckles were to be, all the creases in the plump 
flesh, every infantine wrinkle of the soft skin being lov- 
ingly recorded. "The critics condemn minute represen- 
tation," said Powers ; " but you may look at this through 
a microscope and see if it injures the general effect." 
Nature herself never made a prettier or truer little hand. 
It was the hand of his daughter, — " Luly's hand," 
Powers called it, — the same that gave my own such a 
frank and friendly grasp when I first met "Lilly." The 
sculptor made it only for himself and his wife, but so many 
people, he said, had insisted on having a copy, that there 
are now forty scattered about the world. At sixty years, 
Luly ought to have her hand sculptured again, and give 



1858.] ITALY. 27 

it to her grandchildren with the baby's hand of five 
months old. The baby-hand that had done nothing, and 
felt only its mother's kiss ; the old lady's hand that had 
exchanged the love-pressure, worn the marriage-ring, 
closed dead eyes, — done a lifetime's work, in short. 
The sentiment is rather obvious, but true nevertheless. 

Before we went away, Powers took us into a room 
apart — apparently the secretest room he had — and 
showed us some tools and machinery, all of his own con- 
trivance and invention. " You see I am a bit of a Yan- 
kee," he observed. 

This machinery is chiefly to facilitate the process of 
modelling his works, for — except in portrait-busts — he 
makes no clay model as other sculptors do, but models 
directly in the plaster; so that instead of being crum- 
bled, like clay, the original model remains a permanent 
possession. He has also invented a certain open file, 
which is of great use in finishing the surface of the mar- 
ble ; and likewise a machine for making these files and 
for punching holes through iron, and he demonstrated its' 
efficiency by punching a hole through an iron bar, with 
a force equivalent to ten thousand pounds, by the mere 
application of a part of his own weight. These inven- 
tions, he says, are his amusement, and the bent of his 
nature towards sculpture must indeed have been strong, 
to counteract, in an American, such a capacity for the 
contrivance of steam-engines. .... 

I had no idea of filling so many pages of this jour- 
nal with the sayings and characteristics of Mr. Powers, 
but the man and his talk are fresh, original, and full of 
bone and muscle, and I enjoy him much. 

We now proceeded to the. Pitti Palace, and spent 
several hours pleasantly in its saloons of pictures. I 
never enjoyed pictures anywhere else as I do in Plor- 



28 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

ence. There is an admirable Judith in this gallery by 
Allori; a face of great beauty and depth, and her hand 
clutches the head of Holofernes by the hair in a way 
that startles the spectator. There are two peasant Ma- 
donnas by Murillo ; simple women, yet with a thought- 
ful sense of some high mystery connected with the baby 
in their arms. 

Raphael grows upon me ; several other famous paint- 
ers — Guido, for instance — are fading out of my mind. 
Salvator Rosa has two really wonderful landscapes, look- 
ing from the shore seaward ; and Rubens too, likewise 
on a large scale, of mountain and plain. It is very 
idle and foolish to talk of pictures ; yet, after poring 
over them and into them, it seems a pity to let all the 
thought excited by them pass into nothingness. 

The copyists of pictures are very numerous, both in 
the Pitti and Uffizi galleries; and, unlike sculptors, 
they appear to be on the best of terms with one an- 
other, chatting sociably, exchanging friendly criticism, 
and giving their opinions as to the best mode of at- 
taining the desired effects. Perhaps, as mere copyists, 
they escape the jealousy that might spring up between 
rival painters attempting to develop original ideas. Miss 
Howorth says that the business of copying pictures, 
especially those of Raphael, is a regular profession, and 
she thinks it exceedingly obstructive to the progress 
or existence of a modern school of painting, there being 
a regular demand and sure sale for all copies of the 
old masters, at prices proportioned to their merit ; where- 
as the effort to be original insures nothing, except long 
neglect, at the beginning of a career, and probably 
ultimate failure, and the necessity of becoming a copy- 
ist at last. Some artists employ themselves from youth 
to age in nothing else but the copying of one single 



1858.] ITALY. 29 

and selfsame picture by Raphael, and grow at last to be 
perfectly mechanical, making, I suppose, the same iden- 
tical stroke of the brush in fifty successive pictures. 

The weather is very hot now, — hotter in the sun- 
shine, I think, than a midsummer day usually is in 
America, but with rather a greater possibility of being 
comfortable in the shade. The nights, too, are warm, 
and the bats fly forth at dusk, and the fireflies quite 
light up the green depths of our little garden. The 
atmosphere, or something else, causes a sort of alacrity 
in my mind and an affluence of ideas, such as they are ; 
but it does not thereby make me the happier. I feel an 
impulse to be at work, but am kept idle by the sense of 
being unsettled with removals to be gone through, over 
and over again, before I can shut myself into a quiet 
room of my own, and turn the key. I need monotony 
too, an eventless exterior life, before I can live in the 
world within. 

June 15th. — Yesterday we went to the Uflizi gallery, 
and, of course, I took the opportunity to look again at 
the Yenus de' Medici after Powers's attack upon her face. 
Some of the defects he attributed to her I could not see 
in the statue ; for instance, the ear appeared to be in ac- 
cordance with his own rule, the lowest part of it being 
about in a straight line with the upper lip. The eyes 
must be given up, as not, when closely viewed, having 
the shape, the curve outwards, the formation of the lids, 
that eyes ought to have ; but still, at a proper distance, 
they seemed to have intelligence in them beneath the 
shadow cast by the brow. I cannot help thinking that 
the sculptor intentionally made every feature what it is, 
and calculated them all with a view to the desired effect. 
Whatever rules may be transgressed, it is a noble and 



30 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

beautiful face, — more so, perhaps, than if all rales had 
been obeyed. I wish Powers would do his best to fit the 
Venus's figure (which he does not deny to be admirable) 
with a face which he would deem equally admirable and 
in accordance with the sentiment of the form. 

We looked pretty thoroughly through the gallery, and 
I saw many pictures that impressed me ; but among such 
a multitude, with only one poor mind to take note of 
them, the stamp of each new impression helps to obliter- 
ate a former one. I am sensible, however, that a process 
is going on, and has been ever since I came to Italy, that 
puts me in a state to see pictures with less toil, and more 
pleasure, and makes me more fastidious, yet more sensi- 
ble of beauty where I saw none before. It is the sign, I 
presume, of a taste still very defective, that I take singu- 
lar pleasure in the elaborate imitations of Van Mieris, 
Gerard Douw, and other old Dutch wizards, who painted 
such brass pots that you can see your face in them, and 
such earthen pots that they will surely hold water ; and 
who spent weeks and months in turning a foot or two of 
canvas into a perfect microscopic illusion of some homely 
scene. Tor my part, I wish Raphael had painted the 
" Transfiguration " in this style, at the same time pre- 
serving his breadth and grandeur of design ; nor do I 
believe that there is any real impediment to the combina- 
tion of the two styles, except that no possible space of 
human life could suffice to cover a quarter part of the 
canvas of the "Transfiguration" with such touches as 
Gerard Douw's. But one feels the vast scope of this 
wonderful art, when we think of two excellences so far 
apart as that of this last painter and Raphael. I pause a 
good while, too, before the Dutch paintings of fruit and 
flowers, where tulips and roses acquire an immortal 
bloom, and grapes have kept the freshest juice in them 



1858.] ITALY. 31 

for two or three hundred years. Often, in these pictures, 
there is a bird's-nest, every straw perfectly represented, 
and the stray feather, or the down that the mother-bird 
plucked from her bosom, with the three or four small 
speckled eggs, that seem as if they might be yet warm. 
These pretty miracles have their use in assuring us that 
painters really can do something that takes hold of us in 
our most matter-of-fact moods ; whereas, the merits of 
the grander style of art may be beyond our ordinary ap- 
preciation, and leave us in doubt whether we have not 
befooled ourselves with a false admiration. 

Until we learn to appreciate the cherubs and angels 
that Raphael scatters through the blessed air, in a pic- 
ture of the "Nativity," it is not amiss to look at a 
Dutch fly settling on a peach, or a bumblebee burying 
himself in a flower. 

It is another token of imperfect taste, no doubt, that 
queer pictures and absurd pictures remain in my memory, 
when better ones pass away by the score. There is a 
picture of Venus, combing her son Cupid's head with a 
small-tooth comb, and looking with maternal care among 
his curls ; this I shall not forget. Likewise, a picture of 
a broad, rubicund Judith by Bardone, — a widow of fifty, 
of an easy, lymphatic, cheerful temperament, who has 
just killed Holofernes, and is as self-complacent as if she 
had been carving a goose. What could possibly have 
stirred up this pudding of a woman (unless it were a 
pudding-stick) to do such a deed ! I looked with much 
pleasure at an ugly, old, fat, jolly Bacchus, astride on a 
barrel, by Rubens ; the most natural and lifelike repre- 
sentation of a tipsy rotundity of flesh that it is possible 
to imagine. And sometimes, amid these sensual images, 
I caught the divine pensiveness of a Madonna's face, by 
Raphael, or the glory and majesty of the babe Jesus in 



32 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

her arm, with his Father shining through him. This is a 
sort of revelation, whenever it comes. 

This morning, immediately after breakfast, I walked 
into the city, meaning to make myself better acquainted 
with its appearance, and to go into its various churches ; 
but it soon grew so hot, that I turned homeward again. 
The interior of the Duomo was deliciously cool, to be 
sure, — cool and dim, after the white-hot sunshine ; but 
an old woman began to persecute me, so that I came 
away. A male beggar drove me out of another church ; 
and I took refuge in the street, where the beggar and I 
would have been two cinders together, if we had stood 
long enough on the sunny sidewalk. After my five sum- 
mers' experience of England, I may have forgotten what 
hot weather is ; but it does appear to me that an Ameri- 
can summer is not so fervent as this. Besides the direct 
rays, the white pavement throws a furnace-heat up into 
one's face ; the shady margin of the street is barely tol- 
erable ; but it is like going through the ordeal of fire to 
cross the broad bright glare of an open piazza. The nar- 
row streets prove themselves a blessing at this season, 
except when the sun looks directly into them ; the broad 
eaves of the houses, too, make a selvage of shade, almost 
always. I do not know what becomes of the street- 
merchants at the noontide of these hot days. They form 
a numerous class in Elorence, displaying their wares — 
linen or cotton cloth, threads, combs, and all manner of 
haberdashery — on movable counters that are borne about 
on wheels. In the shady morning, you see a whole side 
of a street in a piazza occupied by them, all offering their 
merchandise at full cry. They dodge as they can from 
shade to shade ; but at last the sunshine floods the whole 
space, and they seem to have melted away, leaving not a 
rag of themselves or what they dealt in. 



1858.] ITALY. 33 

Cherries are very abundant now, and have been so 
ever since we came here, in the markets and all about the 
streets. They are of various kinds, some exceedingly 
large, insomuch that it is almost necessary to disregard 
the old proverb about making two bites of a cherry. 
Eresh figs are already spoken of, though I have seen 
none ; but I saw some peaches this morning, looking as 
if they might be ripe. 



IQtk. — Mr. and Mrs. Powers called to see us 
last evening. Mr. Powers, as usual, was full of talk, 
and gave utterance to a good many instructive and en- 
tertaining ideas. 

As one instance of the little influence the religion of 
the Italians has upon their morals, he told a story of 
one of his servants, who desired leave to set up a small 
shrine of the Virgin in their room — a cheap print, or bas- 
relief, or image, such as are sold everywhere at the shops 
— and to burn a lamp before it ; she engaging, of course, 
to supply the oil at her own expense. By and by, her 
oil-flask appeared to possess a miraculous property of 
replenishing itself, and Mr. Powers took measures to 
ascertain where the oil came from. It turned out that 
the servant had all the time been stealing the oil from 
them, and keeping up her daily sacrifice and worship to 
the Virgin by this constant theft. 

His talk soon turned upon sculpture, and he spoke 
once more of the difficulty imposed upon an artist by the 
necessity of clothing portrait statues in the modern cos- 
tume. I find that he does not approve either of nudity 
or of the Roman toga for a modern statue ; neither does 
he think it right to shirk the difficulty — as Chantrey did 
in the case of Washington — by enveloping him in a 
cloak ; but acknowledges the propriety of taking the 



34 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

actual costume of the age and doing his best with it. 
He himself did so with his own Washington, and also with 
a statue that he made of Daniel Webster. I suggested 
that though this costume might not appear ridiculous to 
us now, yet, two or three centuries hence, it would create, 
to the people of that day, an impossibility of seeing 
the real man through the absurdity of his envelopment, 
after it shall have entirely grown out of fashion and 
remembrance; and Webster would seem as absurd to 
them then as he would to us now in the masquerade of 
some bygone day. It might be well, therefore, to adopt 
some conventional costume, never actual, but always 
graceful and noble. Besides, Webster, for example, had 
other costumes than that which he wore in public, and 
perhaps it was in those that he lived his most real life ; 
his dressing-gown, his drapery of the night, the dress 
that he wore on his fishing-excursions ; in these other 
costumes he spent three fourths of his time, and most 
probably was thus arrayed when he conceived the great 
thoughts that afterwards, in some formal and outside 
mood, he gave forth to the public. I scarcely think I 
was right, but am not sure of the contrary. At any 
rate, I know that I should have felt much more sure that 
I knew the real Webster, if I had seen him in any of the 
above-mentioned dresses, than either in his swallow- 
tailed coat or frock. 

Talking of a taste for painting and sculpture, Powers 
observed that it was something very different and quite 
apart from the moral sense, and that it was often, per- 
haps generally, possessed by unprincipled men of ability 
and cultivation. I have had this perception myself. A 
genuine love of painting and sculpture, and perhaps of 
music, seems often to have distinguished men capable 
of every social crime, and to have formed a fine and 



1858.] ITALY. 35 

hard enamel over their "characters. Perhaps it is be- 
cause such tastes are artificial, the product of cultiva- 
tion, and, when highly developed, imply a great remove 
from natural simplicity. 

This morning I went with U to the Ufiizi gallery, 

and again looked with more or less attention at almost 
every picture and statue. I saw a little picture of the 
golden age, by Zucchero, in which the charms of youths 
and virgins are depicted with a freedom that this iron age 
can hardly bear to look at. The cabinet of gems hap- 
pened to be open for the admission of a privileged party, 
and we likewise went in and saw a brilliant collection of 
goldsmiths' work, among which, no doubt, were speci- 
mens from such hands as Benvenuto Cellini. Little 
busts with diamond eyes ; boxes of gems ; cups carved 
out of precious material ; crystal vases, beautifully chased 
and engraved, and sparkling with jewels ; great pearls, in 
the midst of rubies ; opals, rich with all manner of lovely 
lights. I remember Benvenuto Cellini, in his memoirs, 
speaks of manufacturing such playthings as these. 

I observed another characteristic of the summer streets 
of Florence to-day ; tables, movable to and fro, on wheels, 
and set out with cool iced drinks and cordials. 

. June 17th. — My wife and I went, this morning, to the 
Academy of Fine Arts, and, on our way thither, went 
into the Duomo, where we found a deliriously cool twi- 
light, through which shone the mild gleam of the painted 
windows. I cannot but think it a pity that St. Peter's is 
not lighted by such windows as these, although I by no 
means saw the glory in them now that I have spoken of 
in a record of my former visit. We found out the mon- 
ument of Giotto, a tablet, and portrait in bas-relief, on 
the wall, near the entrance of the cathedral, on the right 



36 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

hand ; also a representation, in fresco, of a kniglit on 
horseback, the memorial of one John Hawkwood, close 
by the door, to the left. The priests were chanting a ser- 
vice of some kind or other in the choir, terribly inharmo- 
nious, and ont of tune 

On reaching the Academy, the soldier or policeman at 
the entrance directed us into the large hall, the walls of 
which were covered on both sides with pictures, arranged 
as nearly as possible in a progressive series, with refer- 
ence to the date of the painters ; so that here the origin 
and procession of the art may be traced through the 
course of, at least, two hundred years. Giotto, Cimabue, 
and others of unfamiliar names to me, are among the ear- 
liest ; and, except as curiosities, I should never desire to 
look once at them, nor think of looking twice. They 
seem to have been executed with great care and con- 
scientiousness, and the heads are often wrought out with 
minuteness and fidelity, and have so much expression 
that they tell their own story clearly enough; but it 
seems not to have been the painter's aim to effect a life- 
like illusion, the background and accessories being con- 
ventional. The trees are no more like real trees than 
the feather of a pen, and there is no perspective, the fig- 
ure of the picture being shadowed forth on a surface of 
burnished gold. The effect, when these pictures, some 
of them very large, were new and freshly gilded, must 
have been exceedingly brilliant, and much resembling, on 
an immensely larger scale, the- rich illuminations in an 
old monkish missal. In fact, we have not now, in picto- 
rial ornament, anything at all comparable to what their 
splendor must have been. I was most struck with a pic- 
ture, by Fabriana Gentile, of the Adoration of the Magi, 
where the faces and figures have a great deal of life and 
action, and even grace, and where the jewelled crowns, 



1858.] ITALY. 37 

the rich embroidered robes, and cloth of gold, and all the 
magnificence of the three kings, are represented with the 
vividness of the real thing : a gold sword-hilt, for in- 
stance, or a pair of gold spurs, being actually embossed 
on the picture. The effect is very powerful, and though 
produced in what modern painters would pronounce an 
unjustifiable way, there is yet pictorial art enough to rec- 
oncile it to the spectator's mind. Certainly, the people 
of the Middle Ages knew better than ourselves what is 
magnificence, and how to produce it ; and what a glorious 
work must that have been, both in its mere sheen of 
burnished gold, and in its illuminating art, which shines 
thus through the gloom of perhaps four centuries. 

Era Angelico is a man much admired by those who 
have a taste for Pre-Raphaelite painters ; and, though I 
take little or no pleasure in his works, I can see that 
there is great delicacy of execution in his heads, and 
that generally he produces such a Christ, and such a 
Virgin, and such saints, as he could not have foreseen, 
except in a pure and holy imagination, nor have wrought 
out without saying a prayer between every two touches 
of his brush. I might come to like him, in time, if I 
thought it worth while ; but it is enough to have an 
outside perception of his kind and degree of merit, and 
so to let him pass into the garret of oblivion, where many 
things as good, or better, are piled away, that our own 
age may not stumble over them. Perugino is the first 
painter whose works seem really worth preserving for the 
genuine merit that is in them, apart from any quaintness 
and curiosity of an ancient and new-born art. Probably 
his religion was more genuine than Raphael's, and there- 
fore the Virgin often revealed herself to him in a loftier 
and sweeter face of divine womanhood than all the genius 
of Raphael could produce. There is a Crucifixion by 



33 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

him in this gallery, which made me partly feel as if I were 
a far-off spectator, — no, I did not mean a Crucifixion, 
but a picture of Christ dead, lying, with a calm, sweet 
face, on his mother's knees [" a Pieta "]. 

The most inadequate and utterly absurd picture here, 
or in any other gallery, is a head of the Eternal Father, 
by Carlo Dolce ; it looks like a feeble saint, on the eve of 
martyrdom, and very doubtful how he shall be able to 
bear it ; very finely and prettily painted, nevertheless. 

After getting through the principal gallery we went 
into a smaller room, in which are contained a great many 
small specimens of the old Tuscan artists, amoug whom 
Fra Angelico makes the principal figure. These pictures 
are all on wood, and seem to have been taken from the 
shrines and altars of ancient churches; they are pre- 
dellas and triptychs, or pictures on three folding tablets, 
shaped quaintly, in Gothic peaks or arches, and still 
gleaming with backgrounds of antique gold. The wood 
is much worm-eaten, and the colors have often faded or 
changed from what the old artists meant them to be ; a 
bright angel darkening into what looks quite as much 
like the Devil. In one of Era Angelico's pictures, — a 
representation of the Last Judgment, — he has tried his 
saintly hand at making devils indeed, and showing them 
busily at work, tormenting the poor, damned souls in 
fifty ghastly ways. Above sits Jesus, with the throng of 
blessed saints around him, and a flow of tender and pow- 
erful love in his own face, that ought to suffice to redeem 
all the damned, and convert the very fiends, and quench 
the fires of hell. At any rate, Fra Angelico had a higher 
conception of his Saviour than Michael Angelo. 

June 19M. — This forenoon we have been to the 
Church of St. Lorenzo, which stands on the site of an 



1858.] ITALY. 39 

ancient basilica, and was itself built more than four cen- 
turies ago. The facade is still an ugly height of rough 
brickwork, as is the case with the Duomo, and, I think, 
some other churches in Florence ; the design of giving 
them an elaborate and beautiful finish having been de- 
layed from cycle to cycle, till at length the day for spend- 
ing mines of wealth on churches is gone by. The inte- 
rior had a nave with a flat roof, divided from the side 
aisles by Corinthian pillars, and, at the farther end, a 
raised space around the high altar. The pavement is a 
mosaic of squares of black and white marble, the squares 
meeting one another cornerwise; the pillars, pilasters, 
and other architectural material is dark brown or grayish 
stone ; and the general effect is very sombre, especially as 
the church is somewhat dimly lighted, and as the shrines 
along the aisles, and the statues, and the monuments of 
whatever kind, look dingy with time and neglect. The 
nave is thickly set with wooden seats, brown and worn. 
What pictures there are, in the shrines and chapels, are 
dark and faded. On the whole, the edifice has a shabby 
aspect. On each side of the high altar, elevated on four 
pillars of beautiful marble, is what looks like a great 
sarcophagus of bronze. They are, in fact, pulpits, and 
are ornamented with mediaeval bas-reliefs, representing 
scenes in the life of our Saviour. Murray says that the 
resting-place of the first Cosmo de' Medici, the old 
banker, who so managed his wealth as to get the posthu- 
mous title of "father of his country," and to make his 
posterity its reigning princes, is in frout of the high 
altar, marked by red and green porphyry and marble, 
inlaid into the pavement. We looked, but could not see 
it there. 

_There were worshippers at some of the shrines, and 
persons sitting here and there along the nave, and in 



40 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1S58. 

the aisles, rapt in devotional thought, doubtless, and 
sheltering themselves here from the white sunshine of 
the piazzas. In the vicinity of the choir and the high 
altar, workmen were busy repairing the church, or 
perhaps only making arrangements for celebrating the 
great festival of St. John. 

On the left hand of the choir is what is called the old 
sacristy, with the peculiarities or notabilities of which I 
am not acquainted. On the right hand is the new sac- 
risty, otherwise called the Capella dei Depositi, or Chapel 
of the Buried, built by Michael Angelo, to contain two 
monuments of the Medici family. The interior is of some- 
what severe and classic architecture, the walls, and pilas- 
ters being of dark stone, and surmounted by a dome, 
beneath which is a row of windows, quite round the 
building, throwing their light down far beneath, upon 
niches, of white marble. These niches are ranged en- 
tirely around the chapel, and might have sufficed to con- 
tain more than all the Medici monuments that the world 
would ever care to have. Only two of these niches are 
filled, however. In one of them sits Giuliano de' Medici, 
sculptured by Michael Angelo, — a figure of dignity, 
which would perhaps be very striking in any other pres- 
ence than that of the statue which occupies the corre- 
sponding niche. At the feet of Giuliano recline two alle- 
gorical statues. Day and Night, whose meaning there I 
do not know^ and perhaps Michael Angelo knew as little. 
As the great sculptor's statues are apt to do, they fling 
their limbs abroad with adventurous freedom. Below 
the corresponding niche, on the opposite side of the 
chapel, recline two similar statues, representing Morning 
and Evening, sufficiently like Day and Night to be their 
brother and sister ; all, in truth, having sprung from the 
same father 



1858.] ITALY. 41 

But the statue that sits above these two latter allego- 
ries, Morning and Evening, is like no other that ever 
came from a sculptor's hand. It is the one work worthy 
of Michael Angelo's reputation, and grand enough to 
vindicate for him all the genius that the world gave him 
credit for. And yet it seems a simple thing enough to 
think of or to execute ; merely a sitting figure, the face 
partly overshadowed by a helmet, one hand supporting 
the chin, the other resting on the thigh. But after look- 
ing at it a little while the spectator ceases to think of it 
as a marble statue ; it comes to life, and you see that 
the princely figure is brooding over some great design, 
which, when he has arranged in his own mind, the world 
will be fain to execute for him. No such grandeur and 
majesty has elsewhere been put into human shape. It 
is all a miracle ; the deep repose, and the deep life with- 
in it. It is as much a miracle to have achieved this as 
to make a statue that would rise up and walk. The face, 
when one gazes earnestly into it, beneath the shadow of 
its helmet, is seen to be calmly sombre ; a mood which, I 
think, is generally that of the rulers of mankind, except 
in moments of vivid action. This statue is one of the 
things which I look at with highest enjoyment, but also 
with grief and impatience, because I feel that I do not 
come at all which it involves, and that by and by I must 
go away and leave it forever. How wonderful ! To take 
a block of marble, and convert it wholly into thought, 
and to do it through all the obstructions and impedi- 
ments of drapery; for there is nothing nude in this 
statue but the face and hands. The vest is the costume 
of Michael Angelo's century. This is what I always 
thought a sculptor of true genius should be able to do, 
— to show the man of whatever epoch, nobly and heroi- 
cally, through the costume which he might actually have 



4-2 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858, 

The statue sits within a square niche of white marble, 
and completely fills it. It seems to me a pity that it 
should be thus confined. At the Crystal Palace, if I 
remember, the effect is improved by a free surrounding 
space. Its naturalness is as if it came out of the marble 
of its own accord, with all its grandeur hanging heavily 
about it, and sat down there beneath its weight. I can- 
not describe it. It is like trying to stop the ghost of 
Hamlet's father, by crossing spears before it. 

Communicating with the sacristy is the Medicean 
Chapel, which was built more than two centuries ago, 
for the reception of the Holy Sepulchre ; arrangements 
having been made about that time to steal this most 
sacred relic from the Turks. The design failing, the 
chapel was converted by Cosmo II. into a place of sep- 
ulture for the princes of his family. It is a very grand 
and solemn edifice, octagonal in shape, with a lofty dome, 
within which is a series of brilliant frescos, painted not 
more than thirty years ago. These pictures are the only 
portion of the adornment of the chapel which interferes 
with the sombre beauty of the general effect ; for though 
the walls are incrusted, from pavement to dome, with mar- 
bles of inestimable cost, and it is a Florentine mosaic on 
a grander scale than was ever executed elsewhere, the 
result is not gaudy, as in many of the Roman chapels, but 
a dark and melancholy richness. The architecture strikes 
me as extremely fine ; each alternate side of. the octagon 
being an arch, rising as high as the cornice of the lofty 
dome, and forming the frame of a vast niche. All the 
dead priuces, no doubt, according to the general design, 
were to have been honored with statues within this stately 
mausoleum ; but only two — those of Ferdinand I. and 
Cosmo II. — seem to have been placed here. They were a 
bad breed, and few of them deserved any better monument 



1858.] ITALY. 43 

than a dunghill ; and yet they have this grand chapel 
for the family at large, and yonder grand statue for one 
of its most worthless members. I am glad of it ; and as 
for the statue, Michael Augelo wrought it through the 
efficacy of a kingly idea, which had no reference to the 
individual whose name it bears. 

In the piazza adjoining the church is a statue of the 
first Cosmo, the old banker, in Roman costume, seated, 
and looking like a man fit to hold authority. No, I 
mistake ; the statue is of John de' Medici, the father of 
Cosmo, and himself no banker, but a soldier. 

Jane 21^. — Yesterday, after dinner, we went, with 

the two eldest children, to the Boboli Gardens 

We entered by a gate, nearer to our house than that by 
the Pitti Palace, and found ourselves almost immediately 
among embowered walks of box and shrubbery, and 
little wildernesses of trees, with here and there a seat 
under an arbor, and a marble statue, gray with ancient 
weather-stains. The site of the garden is a very un- 
even surface, and the paths go upward and downward, 
and ascend, at their ultimate point, to a base of what 
appears to be a fortress, commanding the city. A good 
many of the Florentines were rambling about the gar- 
dens, like ourselves : little parties of school-boys ; fathers 
and mothers, with their youthful progeny ; young men 
in couples, looking closely into every female face; 
lovers, with a maid or two attendant on the young lady. 
All appeared to enjoy themselves, especially the children, 
dancing on the esplanades, or rolling down the slopes of 
the hills ; and the loving pairs, whom it was rather em- 
barrassing to come upon unexpectedly, sitting together 
on the stone sea,t of an arbor, with clasped hands, a pas- 
sionate solemnity in the young man's face, and a down- 



44 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE- BOOKS. [1858. 

cast pleasure in the lady's. Policemen, in cocked hats 
and epaulets, cross-belts, and swords, were scattered 
about the grounds, but interfered with nobody, though 
they seemed to keep an eye on all. A sentinel stood in 
the hot sunshine, looking down over the garden from the 
ramparts of the fortress. 

For my part, in this foreign country, I have no objec- 
tion to policemen or any other minister of authority ; 
though I remember, in America, I had an innate antipa- 
thy to constables, and always sided with the mob against 
law. This was very wrong and foolish, considering that \ 
was one of the sovereigns ; but a sovereign, or any nunu 
ber of sovereigns, or the twenty-millionth part of a sover^ 
eign, does not love to find himself, as an American must, 
included within the delegated authority of his own ser. 
vants. 

There is a sheet of water somewhere in the Boboli 
Gardens, inhabited by swans ; but this we did not see. 
We found a smaller pond, however, set in marble, and 
surrounded by a parapet, and alive with a multitude of 
fish. There were minnows by the thousand, and a good 

many gold-fish ; and J , who had brought some 

bread to feed the swans, threw in handfuls of crumbs for 
the benefit of these finny people. They seemed to be 
accustomed to such courtesies on the part of visitors ; 
and immediately the surface of the water was blackened, 
at the spot where each crumb fell, with shoals of min- 
nows, thrusting one another even above the surface in 
their eagerness to snatch it. Within the depths of the 
pond, the yellowish-green water — its hue being precisely 
that of the Arno — would be reddened duskily with the 
larger bulk of two or three gold-fishes, who finally poked 
their great snouts up among the minnows, but generally 
missed the crumb. Beneath the circular margin of the 



1858.] ITALY. 45 

pond, there are little arches, into the shelter of which tbe 
fish retire, when the noonday sun burns straight down 
into their dark waters. We went on through the garden- 
paths, shadowed quite across by the high walls of box, 
and reached an esplanade, whence we had a good view 
of Florence, with the bare brown ridges on the northern 
side of the Arno, and glimpses of the river itself, flowing 
like a street, between two rows of palaces. A great way 
off, too, we saw some of the cloud-like peaks of the 
Apennines, and, above them, the clouds into which the 
sun was descending, looking quite as substantial as the 
distant mountains. The city did not present a particu- 
larly splendid aspect, though its great Duomo was seen 
in the middle distance, sitting in its circle of little domes, 
with the tall campanile close by, and within one or two 
hundred yards of it, the high, cumbrous bulk of tbe Pa- 
lazzo Vecchio, with its lofty, machicolated, and battle- 
mented tower, very picturesque, yet looking exceedingly 
like a martin-box, on a pole. There were other domes 
and towers and spires, and here and there the distinct 
shape of an edifice; but the general picture was of a 
contiguity of red earthen roofs, filling a not very broad 
or extensive valley, among dry and ridgy hills, with a 

river-gleam lightening up the landscape a little. U 

took out her pencil and tablets, and began to sketch the 
tower of the Palazzo Yecchio ; in doing which, she im- 
mediately became an object of curiosity to some little 
boys and larger people, who failed not, under such pre- 
tences as taking a grasshopper off her dress, or no pre- 
tence at all, to come and look over her shoulder. There 
is a kind of familiarity among these Florentines, which is 
not meant to be discourteous, and ought to be taken in 
good part. 

We continued to ramble through the gardens, in quest 



46 FEENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

of a good spot from which to see the sunset, and at 
length found a stone bench, on the slope of a hill, 
whence the entire cloud and sun scenery was fully pre- 
sented to us. At the foot of the hill were statues, and 
among them a Pegasus, with wings outspread ; and, a 
little beyond, the garden-front of the Pitti Palace, which 
looks a little less like a state-prison here, than as it 
fronts the street. Girls and children, and young men 
and old, were taking their pleasure in our neighborhood ; 
and, just before us, a lady stood talking with her maid. 
By and by, we discovered her to be Miss Ho worth. 
There was a misty light, streaming down on the hither 
side of the ridge of hills, that was rather peculiar ; but 
the most remarkable thing was the shape into which the 
clouds gathered themselves, after the disappearance of 
the sun. It was like a tree, with a broad and heavy 
mass of foliage, spreading high upward on the sky, and 
a dark and well-defined trunk, which rooted itself on the 
verge of the horizon, 

• This morning we went to the Pitti Palace. The air 
was very sultry, and the pavements, already heated with 
the sun, made the space between the buildings seem 
like a close room. The earth, I think, is too much 
stoned out of the streets of an Italian city, — paved, 
like those of Florence, quite across, with broad flag- 
stones, to the line where the stones of the houses on 
each side are piled up. Thunder rumbled over our 
heads, however, and the clouds were so dark that we 
scarcely hoped to reach the palace without feeling the 
first drops of the shower. The air still darkened and 
darkened, so that by the time we arrived at the suite of 
picture-rooms the pictures seemed all to be changed to 
Rembrandts ; the shadows as black as midnight, with 
only some higlny illuminated portions gloaming out. 



1858.] ITALY. 47 

The obscurity of the atmosphere made us seusible how 
splendid is the adornment of these saloons. For the 
gilded cornices shone out, as did the gilding of the 
arches and wreathed circles that divide the ceiling into 
compartments, within which the frescos are painted, and 
whence the figures looked dimly down, like gods out 
of a mysterious sky. The white marble sculptures also 
gleamed from their height, where winged cupids or 
cherubs gambolled aloft in bas-reliefs ; or allegoric 
shapes reclined along the cornices, hardly noticed, when 
the daylight comes brightly into the window. On the 
walls, all the rich picture-frames glimmered in gold, as 
did the framework of the chairs, and the heavy gilded 
pedestals of the marble, alabaster, and mosaic tables. 
These are very magnificent saloons ; and since I have 
begun to speak of their splendor, I may as well add 
that the doors are framed in polished, richly veined 
marble, and the walls hung with scarlet damask. 

It was useless to try to see the pictures. All the 
artists engaged in copying laid aside their brushes ; and 
we looked out into the square before the palace, where 
a mighty wind sprang up, and quickly raised a prodi- 
gious cloud of dust. It hid the opposite side of the 
street, and was carried, in a great dusky whirl, higher 
than the roofs of the houses, higher than the top of 
the Pitti Palace itself. The thunder muttered and 
grumbled, the lightning now and then flashed, and a 
few rain-drops pattered against the windows; but, for 
a long time, the shower held off. At last it came down 
in a stream, and lightened the air to such a degree 
that we could see some of the pictures, especially those 
of Rubens, and the illuminated parts of Sal vat or Rosa's, 
and, best of all, Titian's " Magdalen," the one with 
golden hair clustering round her naked bodv. The 



48 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

golden hair, indeed, seemed to throw out a glory of its 
own. This Magdalen is very coarse and sensual, with 
only an impudent assumption of penitence and religious 
sentiment, scarcely so deep as the eyelids; bat it is a 
splendid picture, nevertheless, with those naked, lifelike 
arms, and the hands that press the rich locks about her, 
and so carefully permit those voluptuous breasts to be 
seen. She a penitent ! She would shake off all pretence 
to it as easily as she would shake aside that clustering 
hair Titian must have been a very good-for- 
nothing old man. 

I looked again at Michael Angelo's Fates to-day; 
but cannot satisfactorily make out what he meant by 
them. One of them — she who holds the distaff — has 
her mouth open, as if uttering a cry, and might be fan- 
cied to look somewhat irate. The second, who holds the 
thread, has a pensive air, but is still, I think, pitiless at 
heart. The third sister looks closely and coldly into 
the eyes of the second, meanwhile cutting the thread 
with a pair of shears. Michael Angelo, if I may pre- 
sume to say so, wished to vary the expression of these 
three sisters, and give each a different one, but did not 
see precisely how, inasmuch as all the fatal Three are 
united, heart and soul, in one purpose. It is a very 
impressive group. But, as regards the interpretation of 
tins, or of any other profound picture, there are likely 
to be as many interpretations as there are spectators. 
It is very curious to read criticisms upon pictures, and 
upon the same face in a picture, and by men of taste 
and feeling, and to find what different conclusions they 
arrive at. Each man interprets the hieroglyphic in 
his own way ; and the painter, perhaps, had a meaning 
which none of them have reached ; or possibly he put 
forth a riddle, without himself knowing the solution. 



1858.] ITALY. 49 

There is such a necessity, at all events, of helping the 
painter out with the spectator's own resources of feel- 
ing and imagination, that you can never be sure how 
much of the picture you have yourself made. There 
is no doubt that the public is, to a certain extent, right 
and sure of its ground, when it declares, through a 
series of ages, that a certain picture is a great work- 
It is so ; a great symbol, proceeding out of a great 
mind; but if it means one thing, it seems to mean a 
thousand, and,, often, opposite things. 

June 27th. — I have had a heavy cold and fever almost 
throughout the past week, and have thereby lost the 
great Florentine festivity, the Feast of St. John, which 
took place on Thursday last, with the fireworks and illu- 
minations the evening before, and the races and court 
ceremonies on the day itself. However, unless it were 
more characteristic and peculiar than the Carnival, I 
have not missed anything very valuable. 

Mr. Powers ealled to see me one evening, and poured 
out, as usual, a stream of talk, both racy and oracular in 
its character. Speaking of human eyes, he observed 
that they did not depend for their expression upon color, 
nor upon any light of the soul beaming through them, nor 
any glow of the eyeball, nor upon anything but the form 
and action of the surrounding muscles. He illustrates 
it by saying, that if the eye of a wolf, or of whatever 
fiercest animal, could be placed in another setting, it 
would be found capable of the utmost gentleness of 
expression. <e You yourself," said he, " have a very 
bright and sharp look sometimes; but it is not in the 
eye itself." His own eyes, as I could have sworn, were 
glowing all the time he spoke ; and, remembering how 
many times I have seemed to see eyes glow, and blaze, 

vol. ii, 3 r> 



50 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

and flash, and sparkle, and melt, and soften ; and how 
all poetry is illuminated with the light of ladies' eves ; 
and how many people have been smitten by the light- 
ning of an eye, whether in love or anger, it was difficult 
to allow that all this subtlest and keenest fire is illusive, 
not even phosphorescent, and that any other jelly in the 
same socket would serve as well as the brightest eye. 
Nevertheless, he must be right ; of course he must, and 
I am rather ashamed ever to have thought otherwise. 
Where should the light come from ? Has a man a flame 
inside of his head ? Does his spirit manifest itself in the 
semblance of flame ? The moment we think of it, the 
absurdity becomes evident. I am not quite sure, how- 
ever, that the outer surface of the eye may not reflect 
more light in some states of feeling than in others ; the 
state of the health, certainly, has an influence of this kind. 
I asked Powers what he thought of Michael Angelo's 
statue of Lorenzo de' Medici. He allowed that its effect 
was very grand and mysterious ; but added that it owed 
this to a trick, — the effect being produced by the ar- 
rangement of the hood, as he called it, or helmet, which 
throws the upper part of the face into shadow. The niche 
in which it sits has, I suppose, its part to perform in throw- 
ing a still deeper shadow. It is very possible that Michael 
Angelo may have calculated upon this effect of sombre 
shadow, and legitimately, I think; but it really is not 
worthy of Mr. Powers to say that the whole effect of this 
mighty statue depends, not on the positive efforts of 
Michael Angelo's chisel, but on the absence of light in a 
space of a few inches. He wrought the whole statue in 
harmony with that small part of it which he leaves to the 
spectator's imagination, and if he had erred at any point, 
the miracle wduld have been a failure; so that, working 
in marble, he has positively reached a degree of excellence 



1858.] ITALY. 51 

above the capability of marble, sculpturing bis highest 
touches upon air and duskiness. 

Mr. Powers gave some amusing anecdotes of his early 
life, when he was a clerk in a store in Cincinnati. There 
was a museum opposite, the proprietor of which had a 
peculiar physiognomy that struck Powers, insomuch that 
he felt impelled to make continual caricatures of it. He 
used to draw them upon the door of the museum, and be- 
came so familiar with the face, that he could draw them 
in the dark ; so that, every morning, here was this absurd 
profile of himself, greeting the museum-man when he 
came to open his establishment. Often, too, it would re- 
appear within an hour after it was rubbed out. The man 
was infinitely annoyed, and made all possible efforts to 
discover the unknown artist, but in vain; and finally 
concluded, I suppose, that the likeness broke out upon 
the door of its own accord, like the nettle-rash. Some 
years afterwards, the proprietor of the museum engaged 
Powers himself as an assistant ; and one day Powers asked 
him if he remembered this mysterious profile. " Yes," said 
he, " did you know who drew tbem B " Powers took a 
piece of chalk, and touched off the very profile again, 
before the man's eyes. " Ah," said he, " if I had known 
it at the time, I would have broken every bone in your 
body ! " 

Before he began to work in marble, Powers had 
greater practice and success in making wax figures, and 
he produced a work of this kind called " The Infernal 
Regions," which he seemed to imply had been very 
famous. He said he once wrought a face in wax which 
was life itself, having made the eyes on purpose for it, 
and put in every hair in the eyebrows individually, and 
finished the whole with similar minuteness; so that, 
within the distance of a foot or two, it was impossible to 
tell that the face did not live. 



52 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

I have hardly ever before felt an impulse to write 
down a man's conversation as I do that of Mr. Powers. 
The chief reason is, probably, that it is so possible to 
do it, his ideas being square, solid, and tangible, and 
therefore readily grasped and retained. He is a very 
instructive man, and sweeps one's empty and dead no- 
tions out of the way with exceeding vigor; but when 
you have his ultimate thought and perception, you feel 
inclined to think and see a little further for yourself. 
He sees too clearly what is within his range to be aware 
of any region of mystery beyond. Probably, however, 
this latter remark does him injustice. I like the man, 
and am always glad to encounter the mill-stream of his 

talk Yesterday he met me in the street (dressed 

in his linen blouse and slippers, with a little bit of a 
sculptor's cap on the side of his head), and gave utter- 
ance to a theory of colds, and a dissertation on the bad 
effects of draughts, whether of cold air or hot, and the 
dangers of transfusing blood from the veins of one living 
subject to those of another. On the last topic, he re- 
marked that if a single particle of air found its way into 
the veins, along with the transfused blood, it caused con- 
vulsions and inevitable death ; otherwise the process 
might be of excellent effect. 

Last evening, we went to pass the evening with Miss 
Blagden, who inhabits a villa at Bellosguardo, about a 
mile outside of the walls. The situation is very lofty, 
and there are good views from every window of the 
house, and an especially fine one of Florence and the hills 
beyond, from the balcony of the drawing-room. By and 
by came Mr. Browning, Mr. Trollope, Mr. Boott and his 
young daughter, and two or three other gentlemen 

Browning was very genial aud full of life, as usual, 
but his conversation has the effervescent aroma which 



1858.] ITALY. 53 

you cannot catch, even if you get the very words that 
seem to be imbued with it. He spoke most raptur- 
ously of a portrait of Mrs. Browning, which an Italian 
artist is painting for the wife of an American gentleman, 
as a present from her husband. The success was already 
perfect, although there had been only two sittings as yet, 
and both on the same day ; and in this relation, Mr. 

Browning remarked that P , the American artist, had 

had no less than seventy-three sittings of him for a por- 
trait. In the result, every hair and speck of him was 
represented ; yet, as I inferred from what he did not say, 
this accumulation of minute truths did not, after all, 
amount to the true whole. 

I do not remember much else that Browning said, 
except a playful abuse of a little King Charles spaniel, 
named Frolic, Miss Blagden's lap-dog, whose venerable 
age (he is eleven years old) ought to have pleaded in 
his behalf. Browning's nonsense is of very genuine and 
excellent quality, the true babble and effervescence of a 
bright and powerful mind ; and he lets it play among his 
friends with the faith and simplicity of a child. He must 
be an amiable man. I should like him much, and should 
make him like me, if opportunities were favorable. 

I conversed principally with Mr. Trollope, the son, I 
believe, of the Mrs. Trollope to whom America owes 
more for her shrewd criticisms than we are ever likely to 
repay. Mr. Trollope is a very sensible and cultivated man, 
and, I suspect, an author : at least, there is a literary 
man of repute of this name, though I have never read 
his works. He has resided in Italy eighteen years. It 
seems a pity to do this. It needs the native air to give 
life a reality ; a truth which I do not fail to take home 
regretfully to myself, though without feeling much incli- 
nation to go back to the realities of my own. 



5 1 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

We had a pleasant cup of tea, and took a moonlight 
view of Florence from the balcony 

June 28th. — Yesterday afternoon, J and I went 

to a horse-race, which took place in the Corso and con- 
tiguous line of streets, in further celebration of the 
Feast of St. John. A crowd of people was already col- 
lected, all along the line of the proposed race, as early as 
six o'clock ; and there were a great many carriages driv- 
ing amid the throng, open barouches mostly, in which 
the beauty and gentility of Florence were freely dis- 
played. It was a repetition of the scene in the Corso at 
Rome, at Carnival time, without the masks, the fun, and 
the confetti. The Grand Duke and Duchess and the 
Court likewise made their appearance in as many as 
seven or eight coaches-and-six, each with a coachman, 
three footmen, and a postilion in the royal livery, aud 
attended by a troop of horsemen in scarlet coats and 
cocked hats. I did not particularly notice the Grand 
Duke himself; but, in the carriage behind him, there sat 
only a lady, who favored the people along the street with 
a constant succession of bows, repeated at such short 
intervals, and so quickly, as to be little more than nods ; 
therefore not particularly graceful or majestic. Having 
the good fortune to be favored with one of these nods, 
I lifted my hat in response, and may therefore claim a 
bowing acquaintance with the Grand Duchess. She is 
a Bourbon of the Naples family, and was a pale, hand- 
some woman, of princely aspect enough. The crowd 
evinced no enthusiasm, nor the slightest feeling of any 
kind, in acknowledgment of the presence of their rulers ; 
and, indeed, I think I never saw a crowd so well be- 
haved ; that is, with so few salient points, so little ebulli- 
tion, so absolutely tame, as the Florentine one. After 



1858.] ITALY. 55 

all, and much contrary to my expectations, an American 
crowd has incomparably more life than any other ; and, 
meeting on any casual occasion, it will talk, laugh, roar, 
and be diversified with a thousand characteristic incidents 
and gleams and shadows, that you see nothing of here. The 
people seems to have no part even in its own gatherings. 
It comes, together merely as a mass of spectators, and 
must not so much as amuse itself by any activity of 
mind. 

The race, which was the attraction that drew us all 
together, turned out a very pitiful affair. When we had 
waited till nearly dusk, the street being thronged quite 
across, insomuch that it seemed impossible that it should 
be cleared as a race-course, there came suddenly from 
every throat a quick, sharp exclamation, combining into 
a general shout. Immediately the crowd pressed back 
on each side of the street ; a moment afterwards, there 
was a rapid pattering of hoofs over the earth with which 
the pavement was strewn, and I saw the head and back 
of a horse rushing past. A few seconds more, and 
another horse followed; and at another little interval, 
a third. This was all that we had waited for ; all that 
I saw, or anybody else, except those who stood on the 
utmost verge of the course, at the risk of being trampled 
down and killed. Two men were killed in this way on 
Thursday, and certainly human life was never spent for 
a poorer object. The spectators at the windows, to be 
sure, having the horses in sight for a longer time, might 
get a little more enjoyment out of the affair. By the 
by, the most picturesque aspect of the scene was the life 
given to it by the many faces, some of them fair ones, 
that looked out from window and balcony, all along the 
curving line of lofty palaces and edifices, between which 
the race-course lay ; and from nearly every window, and 



56 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

over ever j balcony, was flung a silken texture, or cloth 
of brilliant hue, or piece of tapestry or carpet, or what- 
ever adornment of the kind could be had, so as to dress 
up the street in gala attire. But the Feast of St. John, 
like the Carnival, is but a meagre semblance of festivity, 
kept alive factitiously, and dying a lingering death of 
centuries. It takes the exuberant mind and heart of 
a people to keep its holidays alive. 

I do not know whether there be any populace in Flor- 
ence, but I saw none that I recognized as such, on this 
occasion. All the people were respectably dressed and 
perfectly well behaved; and soldiers and priests were 
scattered abundantly among the throng. On my way 
home, I saw the Teatro Goldoni, which is in our own 
street, lighted up for a representation this Sunday even- 
ing. It shocked my New England prejudices a little. 

This forenoon, my wife and I went to the Church of 
Santa Croce, the great monumental deposit of Floren- 
tine worthies. The piazza before it is a wide, gravelled 
square, where the liberty of Florence, if it really ever 
had any genuine liberty, came into existence some hun- 
dreds of years ago, by the people's taking its own rights 
into its hands, and putting its own immediate will in ex- 
ecution. The piazza has not much appearance of antiq- 
uity, except that the facade of one of the houses is quite 
covered with ancient frescos, a good deal faded and ob- 
literated, yet with traces enough of old glory to show 
that the colors must have been well laid on. 

The front of the church, the foundation of which was 
laid six centuries ago, is still waiting for its casiug of 
marbles, and I suppose will wait forever, though a car- 
penter's staging is now erected before it, as if with the 
purpose of doing something. 

The interior is spacious, the length of the church being 



1858.] ITALY. 57 

between four aud five hundred feet. There is a nave, 
roofed with wooden cross-beams, lighted by a clere-story 
aud supported on each side by seven great pointed 
arches, which rest upon octagoual pillars. The octagon 
seems to be a favorite shape in Florence. These pillars 
were clad in yellow and scarlet damask, in honor of the 
least of St. John. The aisles, on each side of the nave, 
are lighted with high and somewhat narrow windows of 
painted glass, the effect of which, however, is much di- 
minished by the flood of common daylight that comes in 
through the windows of the clere-story. It is like ad- 
mitting too much of the light of reason and worldly 
intelligence into the nhnd, instead of illuminating it 
wholly through a religious medium. The many-hued 
saints and angels lose their mysterious effulgence, when 
we get white light enough, and find we see all the better 
without their help. 

The main pavement of the church is brickwork ; but 
it is inlaid with many sepulchral slabs of marble, on 
some of which knightly or priestly figures are sculp- 
tured in bas-relief. In both of the side aisles there are 
saintly shrines, alternating with mural monuments, some 
of which record names as illustrious as any in the world. 
As you enter, the first monument on your right is that 
of Michael Angelo, occupying the ancient burial-site of 
his family. The general design is a heavy sarcophagus 
of colored marble, with the figures of Sculpture, Paint- 
ing, and Architecture as mourners, and Michael Angelo 's 
bust above, the whole assuming a pyramidal form. You 
pass a shrine, within its framework of marble pillars and 
a pediment, and come next to Dante's monument, a 
modern work, with likewise its sarcophagus, and some 
huge, cold images weeping and sprawling over it, and 
all unimpressive statue of Dante sitting above. 
3* 



58 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

Another shrine intervenes, and next you see the tomb 
of Alfieri, erected to his memory by the Countess of 
Albany, who pays, out of a woman's love, the honor 
which his country owed him. Her own monument is 
in one of the chapels of the transept. 

Passing the next shrine you see the tomb of Mac- 
chiavelli, which, I think, was constructed not many 
years after his death. The rest of the monuments, on 
this side of the church, commemorate people of less than 
world-wide fame ; and though the opposite side has like- 
wise a monument alternating with each shrine, I remem- 
ber only the names of Raphael Morghen and of Galileo. 
The tomb of the latter is over against that of Michael 
Angelo, being the first large tomb on the left-hand wall 
as you enter the church. It has the usual heavy sar- 
cophagus, surmounted by a bust of Galileo, in the habit 
of his time, and is, of course, duly provided with mourn- 
ers in the shape of Science or Astronomy, or some such 
cold-hearted people. I wish every sculptor might be at 
once imprisoned for life who shall hereafter chisel an 
allegoric figure ; and as for those who have sculptured 
them heretofore, let them be kept in purgatory till the 
marble shall have crumbled away. It is especially ab- 
surd to assign to this frozen sisterhood of the allegoric 
family the office of weeping for the dead, inasmuch as 
they have incomparably less feeling than a lump of ice, 
which might contrive to shed a tear if the sun shone on 
it. But they seem to let themselves out, like the hired 
mourners of an English funeral, for the very reason that, 
having no interest in the dead person, nor any affections 
or emotions whatever, it costs them no wear and tear of 
heart. 

All round both transepts of the church there is a series 
of chapels, into most of which we went, and generally 



1858.] ITALY. 59 

found an inscrutably dark picture over the altar, and 
often a marble bust or two, or perhaps a mediaeval statue 
of a saint or a modern monumental bas-relief in marble, 
as white as new-fallen snow. A chapel of the Bonapartes 
is here, containing memorials of two female members of 
the family. In several chapels, moreover, there were 
some of those distressing frescos, by Giotto, Cimabue, or 
their compeers, which, whenever I see them, — poor, 
faded relics, looking as if the Devil had been rubbing and 
scrubbing them for centuries, in spite against the saints, 
— my heart sinks and my stomach sickens. There is no 
other despondency like this ; it is a new shade of human 
misery, akin to the physical disease that comes from dry- 
rot in a wall. These frescos are to a church what dreary, 
old remembrances are to a mind ; the drearier because 
they were once bright : Hope fading into Disappointment, 
Joy into Grief, and festal splendor passing into funereal 
duskiness, and saddening you all the more by the grim 
identity that you find to exist between gay things and 
sorrowful ones. Only wait long enough, and they turn 
out to be the very same. 

All the time we were in the church some great religious 
ceremony had been going forward; the organ playing 
and the white-robed priests bowing, gesticulating, and 
making Latin prayers at the high altar, where at least 
a hundred wax tapers were burning in constellations. 
Everybody knelt, except ourselves, yet seemed not to be 
troubled by the echoes of our passing footsteps, nor to 
require that we should pray along with them. They 
consider us already lost irrevocably, no doubt, and there- 
fore right enough in taking no heed of their devotions ; 
not but what we took so much heed, however, as to give 
the smallest possible disturbance. By and by we sat 
down in the nave of the church till the ceremony should 



60 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

be concluded ; and then my wife left me to go in quest 
of yet another chapel, where either Cimabue or Giotto, 
or both, have left some of their now ghastly decorations. 
While she was gone I threw my eyes about the church, 
and came to the conclusion that, in spite of its antiquity, 
its size, its architecture, its painted windows, its tombs of 
great men, and all the reverence and interest that broods 
over them, it is not an impressive edifice. Any little 
Norman chnrch in England would impress me as much, 
and more. There is something, I do not know what, 
but it is in the region of the heart, rather than in the 
intellect, that Italian architecture, of whatever age or 
style, never seems to reach. 

Leaving the Santa Croce, we went next in quest of the 
Riccardi Palace. On our way, in the rear of the Grand 
Ducal Piazza, we passed by the Bargello, formerly the 
palace of the Podesta of Plorence, and now converted 
into a prison. It is an immense square edifice of dark 
stone, with a tall, lank tower rising high above it at one 
corner. Two stone lions, symbols of the city, lash their 
tails and glare at the passers-by ; and all over the front 
of the building windows are scattered irregularly, and 
grated with rusty iron bars ; also there are many square 
holes, which probably admit a little light and a breath or 
two of air into prisoners' cells. It is a very ugly edifice, 
but looks antique, and as if a vast deal of history might 
have been transacted within it, or have beaten, like fierce 
blasts, against its dark, massive walls, since the thirteenth 
century. When I first saw the city it struck me that 
there were few marks of antiquity in Plorence ; but I 
am now inclined to think otherwise, although the bright 
Italian atmosphere, and the general squareness and mo- 
notony of the Italian architecture, have their effect in 
apparently modernizing everything. But everywhere we 



1858.] ITALY. 61 

see the ponderous Tuscan basements that never can 
decay, and winch will look, five hundred years hence, as 
they look now ; and one often passes beneath an abbrevi- 
ated remnant of what was once a lofty tower, perhaps 
three hundred feet high, such as used to be numerous in 
Florence when each noble of the city had his own warfare 
to wage ; and there are patches of sculpture that look 
old on houses, the modern stucco of which causes them 
to look almost new. Here and there an unmistakable an- 
tiquity stands in its own impressive shadow ; the Church 
of Or San Michele, for instance, once a market, but 
which grew to be a church by some inherent fitness and 
inevitable consecration. It has not the least the aspect 
of a church, being high and square, like a mediaeval pal- 
ace ; but deep and high niches are let into its walls, 
within which stand great statues of saints, masterpieces 
of Donatello, and other sculptors of that age, before sculp- 
ture began to be congealed by the influence of Greelc art. 
The Biccardi Palace is at the corner of the Via Larga. 
It was built by the first Cosmo de' Medici, the old 
banker, more than four centuries ago, and was long the 
home of the ignoble race of princes which he left behind 
him. It looks fit to be still the home of a princely race, 
being nowise dilapidated nor decayed externally, nor 
likely to be so, its high Tuscan basement being as solid 
as a ledge of rock, and its upper portion not much less 
so, though smoothed into another order of stately archi- 
tecture. Entering its court from the Via Larga, we 
found ourselves beneath a pillared arcade, passing round 
the court like a cloister ; and on the walls of the palace, 
under this succession of arches, were statues, bas-reliefs, 
and sarcophagi, in which, first, dead Pagans had slept, 
and then dead Christians, before the sculptured coffins 
were brought hither to adorn the palace of the Medici. 



62 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

In the most prominent place was a Latin inscription of 
great length and breadth, chiefly in praise of old Cosmo 
and his deeds and wisdom. This mansion gives the vis- 
itor a stately notion of the life of a commercial man in 
the days when merchants were princes ; not that it 
seems to be so wonderfully extensive, nor so very grand, 
for I suppose there are a dozen Roman palaces that ex- 
cel it in both these particulars. Still, we cannot but be 
conscious that it must have been, in some sense, a great 
man who thought of founding a homestead like this, and 
was capable of filling it with his personality, as the hand 
fills a glove. It has been found spacious enough, since 
Cosmo's time, for an emperor and a pope and a king, all 
of whom have been guests in this house. After being 
the family mansion of the Medici for nearly two centu- 
ries, it was sold to the Riccardis, but was subsequently 
bought of them by the government, and it is now occu- 
pied by public offices and societies. 

After sufficiently examining the court and its antiqui- 
ties, we ascended a noble staircase that passes, by broad 
flights and square turns, to the region above the base- 
ment. Here the palace is cut up and portioned off into 
little rooms and passages, and everywhere there were 
desks, inkstands, and men, with pens in their fingers or 
behind their ears. We were shown into a little antique 
chapel, quite covered with frescos in the Giotto style, 
but painted by a certain Gozzoli. They were in pretty 
good preservation, and, in fact, I am wrong in comparing 
them to Giotto's works, inasmuch as there must have 
been nearly two hundred years between the two artists. 
The chapel was furnished with curiously carved old chairs, 
and looked surprisingly venerable within its little precinct. 

We were next guided into the grand gallery, a hall 
of respectable size, with a frescoed ceiling, on which is 



1858.] ITALY. 63 

represented the blue sky, and various members of the 
Medici family ascending through it by the help of an- 
gelic personages, who seem only to have waited for their 
society to be perfectly happy. At least, this was the 
meaning, so far as I could make it out. Along one side 
of the gallery were oil-pictures on looking-glasses, rather 
good than otherwise ; but Rome, with her palaces and 
villas, takes the splendor out of all this sort of thing 
elsewhere. 

On our way home, and on our own side of the Ponte 
Vecchio, we passed the Palazzo Guicciardini, the ancient 
residence of the historian of Italy, who was a politic 
statesman of his day, and probably as cruel and unprin- 
cipled as any of those whose deeds he has recorded. 
Opposite, across the narrow way, stands the house of 
Macchiavelli, who was his friend, and, I should judge, 
an honester man than he. The house is distinguished 
by a marble tablet, let into the wall, commemorative of 
Macchiavelli, but has nothing antique or picturesque 
about it, being in a continuous line with other smooth- 
faced and stuccoed edifices. 

June 30M. — Yesterday, at three o'clock p. m., I went 
to see the final horse-race of the Feast of St. John, or 
rather to see the concourse of people and grandees whom 
it brought together. I took my stand in the vicinity of 
the spot whence the Grand Duke and his courtiers view 
the race, and from this point the scene was rather better 
worth looking at than from the street-corners whence I 
saw it before. The vista of the street, stretching far 
adown between two rows of lofty edifices, was really gay 
and gorgeous with the silks, damasks, and tapestries of 
all bright hues, that flaunted from windows and balco- 
nies, whence ladies looked forth and looked down, them- 



64 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

selves making the liveliest part of the show. The whole 
capacity of the street swarmed with moving heads, leaving 
scarce room enough for the carriages, which, as on S 



un- 



day, passed up and down, until the signal for the race 
was given. Equipages, too, were constantly arriving at 
the door of the building which communicates with ths 
open loggia, where the Grand Ducal party sit to see and 
to be seen. Two sentinels were standing at the door, 
and presented arms as each courtier or ambassador, or 
whatever dignity it might be, alighted. Most of them 
had on gold-embroidered court-dresses ; some of them 
had military uniforms, and medals in abundance at the 
breast ; and ladies also came, looking like heaps of lace 
and gauze in the carriages, but lightly shaking themselves 
into shape as they went up the steps. By and by a 
trumpet sounded, a drum beat, and again appeared a 
succession of half a dozen royal equipages, each with its 
six horses, its postilion, coachman, and three footmen, 
grand with cocked hats and embroidery ; and the gray- 
headed, bowing Grand Duke" and his nodding Grand 
Duchess as before. The Noble Guard ranged themselves 
on horseback opposite the loggia; but there was no irk- 
some and impertinent show of ceremony and restraint 
upon the people. The play -guard of volunteer soldiers, 
who escort the President of the United States in his 
Northern progresses, keep back their fellow-citizens much 
more sternly and immitigably than the Florentine guard 
kept back the populace from its despotic sovereign. 

This morning J and I have been to the Uffizi gal- 
lery. It was his first visit there, and he passed a sweep- 
ing condemnation upon everything he saw, except a fly, a 
snail-shell, a caterpillar, a lemon, a piece of bread, and a 
wineglass, in some of the Dutch pictures. The Venus de' 
Medici met with no sort of favor. His feeling of utter 



1858.] ITALY. 65 

distaste reacted upon me, and I was sensible of the same 
weary lack of appreciation that used to chill me through, 
in my earlier visits to picture-galleries ; the same doubt, 
moreover, whether we do not bamboozle ourselves in the 
greater part of the admiration which we learn to bestow. 
I looked with some pleasure at one of Correggio's Ma- 
donnas in the Tiibune, — no divine and deep-thoughted 
mother of the Saviour, but a young woman playing with 
her first child, as gay and thoughtless as itself. I looked 
at Michael Angelo's Madonna, in which William Ware 
saw such prophetic depth of feeling ; but I suspect it was 
one of the many instances in which the spectator sees 
more than the painter ever dreamed of. 

Straying through the city, after leaving the gallery, we 
went into the Church of Or San Michele, and saw in its 
architecture the traces of its transformation from a mar- 
ket into a church. In its pristine state it consisted of 
a double row of three great open arches, with the wind 
blowing through them, and the sunshine falling aslant- 
wise into them, while the bustle of the market, the sale 
of fish, flesh, or fruit went on within, or brimmed over 
into the streets that enclosed them on every side. But, 
four or five hundred years ago, the broad arches were 
built up with stone-work ; windows were pierced through 
and filled with painted glass ; a high altar, in a rich style 
of pointed Gothic, was raised ; shrines and confessionals 
were set up ; and here it is, a solemn and antique church, 
where a man may buy his salvation instead of his dinner. 
At any rate, the Catholic priests will insure it to him, and 
take the price. The sculpture within the beautifully dec- 
orated niches, on the outside of the church, is very curi- 
ous and interesting. The statues of those old saints seem 
to have that charm of earnestness which so attracts the 
admirers of the Pre-Raphaelite painters. 



6& FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

It appears that a picture of the Virgin used to hang 
against one of the pillars of the market-place while it was 
still a market, and in the year 1291 several miracles were 
wrought by it, insomuch that a chapel was consecrated 
for it. So many worshippers came to the shrine that 
the business of the market was impeded, and ultimately 
the Virgin and St. Michael won the whole space for them- 
selves. The upper part of the edifice was at that time 
a granary, and is still used for other than religious pur- 
poses. This church was one spot to which the inhabi- 
tants betook themselves much for refuge and divine assist- 
ance during the great plague described by Boccaccio. 

July 2d. — .We set out yesterday morning to visit the 
Palazzo Buonarotti, Michael Angelo's ancestral home. 
.... It is in the Via Ghibellina, an ordinary-looking, 
three-story house, with broad-brimmed eaves, a stuccoed 
front, and two or three windows painted in fresco, besides 
the real ones. Adown the street, there is a glimpse of 
the hills outside of Florence. The sun shining heavily 
directly upon the front, we rang the door-bell, and then 
drew back into the shadow that fell from the opposite 
side of the street. After we had waited some time a 
man looked out from an upper window, and a woman 
from a lower one, and informed us that we could not be 
admitted now, nor for two or three months to come, the 
house being under repairs. It is a pity, for I wished to 
see Michael Angelo's sword and walking-stick and old 
slippers, and whatever other of his closest personalities 
are to be shown 

We passed into the Piazza of the Grand Duke, and 
looked into the court of the Palazzo Vecchio, with its 
beautifully embossed pillars; and, seeing just beyond the 
court a staircase of broad and easy steps, we ascended it 



1858.] ITALY. 67 

at a venture. Upward and upward we went, flight after 
flight of stairs, and through passages, till at last we found 
an official who ushered us into a large saloon. It was the 
Hall of Audience. Its heavily embossed ceiling, rich with 
tarnished gold, was a feature of antique magnificence, 
and the only one that it retained, the floor being paved 
with tiles and the furniture scanty or none. There were, 
however, three cabinets standing against the walls, two 
of which contained very curious and exquisite carvings 
and cuttings in ivory ; some of them in the Chinese style 
of hollow, concentric balls ; others, really beautiful works 
of art : little crucifixes, statues, saintly and knightly, and 
cups enriched with delicate bas-reliefs. The custode 
pointed to a small figure of St. Sebastian, and also to a 
vase around which the reliefs seemed to assume life. 
Both these specimens, he said, were by Benvenuto Cel- 
lini, and there were many others that might well have 
been wrought by his famous hand. The third cabinet 
contained a great number and variety of crucifixes, chal- 
ices, and whatever other vessels are needed in altar ser- 
vice, exquisitely carved out of amber. They belong to 
the chapel of the palace, and into this holy closet we were 
now conducted. It is large enough to accommodate 
comfortably perhaps thirty worshippers, and is quite cov- 
ered with frescos by Ghirlandaio in good preservation, 
and with remnants enough of gilding and bright color to 
show how splendid the chapel must have been when the 
Medicean Grand Dukes used to pray here. The altar is 
still ready for service, and I am not sure that some of the 
wax tapers were not burning ; but Lorenzo the Magnifi- 
cent was nowhere to be seen. 

The custode now led us back through the Hall of 
Audience into a smaller room, hung with pictures chiefly 
of the Medici and their connections, among whom was 



68 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

one Carolina, an intelligent and pretty child, and Bianca 
Cap elk. 

There was nothing else to show us, except a very 
noble and most spacious saloon, lighted by two large 
windows at each end, coming down level with the floor, 
and by a row of windows on one side just beneath the 
cornice. A gilded framework divides the ceiling into 
squares, circles, and octagons, the compartments of 
which are filled with pictures in oil ; and the walls are 
covered with immense frescos, representing various bat- 
tles and triumphs of the Florentines. Statues by Michael 
Angelo, John of Bologna, and Bandinello, as well his- 
toric as ideal, stand round the hall, and it is really a fit 
theatre for the historic scenes of a country to be acted in. 
It was built, moreover, with the idea of its being the 
council-hall of a free people ; but our own little Eaneuil, 
which was meant, in all simplicity, to be merely a spot 
where the townspeople should meet to choose their se- 
lectmen, has served the world better in that respect. I 
wish I had more room to speak of this vast, dusky, his- 
toric hall. [This volume of journal closes here.] 

July 4ith, 1858. — Yesterday forenoon we went to see 
the Church of Santa Maria Novella. We found the 
piazza, on one side of which the church stands, encum- 
bered with the amphitheatrical ranges of wooden seats 
that had been erected to accommodate the spectators of 
the chariot-races, at the recent Eeast of St. John. The 
front of the church is composed of black and white mar- 
ble, which, in the course of the five centuries that it has 
been built, has turned brown and yellow. On the right 
hand, as you approach, is a long colonnade of arches, ex- 
tending on a line with the facade, and having a tomb 
beneath every arch. This colonnade forms one of the 



1858.] ITALY. 69 

enclosing walls of a cloister. We found none of the 
front entrances open, but on our left, in a wall at right 
angles with the church, there was an open gateway, ap- 
proaching which, we saw, within the four-sided colon- 
nade, an enclosed green space of a cloister. This is what 
is called the Chiostro Verde, so named from the prevail- 
ing color of the frescos with which the walls beneath the 
arches are adorned. 

This cloister is the reality of what I used to imagine 
when I saw the half-ruinous colonnades connected with 
English cathedrals, or endeavored to trace out the lines 
along the broken wall of some old abbey. Not that this 
extant cloister, still perfect and in daily use for its origi- 
nal purposes, is nearly so beautiful as the crumbling ruin 
which has ceased to be trodden by monkish feet for more 
than three centuries. The cloister of Santa Maria has 
not the seclusion that is desirable, being open, by its 
gateway, to the public square ; and several of the neigh- 
bors, women as well as men, were loitering within its 
precincts. The convent, however, has another and larger 
cloister, which I suppose is kept free from interlopers. 
The Chiostro Yerde is a walk round the four sides of a 
square, beneath an arched and groined roof. One side 
of the walk looks upon an enclosed green space with a 
fountain or a tomb (I forget which) in the centre ; the 
other side is ornamented all along with a succession of 
ancient frescos, representing subjects of Scripture his- 
tory. In the days when the designs were more distinct 
than now, it must have been a very effective way for a 
monk to read Bible history, to see its personages and 
events thus passing visibly beside him in his morning and 
evening walks. Beneath the frescos on one side of the 
cloistered walk, and along the low stone parapet that 
separates it from the grass-plat on the other, are inscrip- 



70 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

tions to the memory of the dead who are buried under- 
neath the pavement. The most of these were modern, 
and recorded the names of persons of no particular note. 
Other monumental slabs were inlaid with the pavement 
itself. Two* or three Dominican monks, belonging to the 
convent, passed in and out, while we were there, in their 
white habits. 

After going round three sides, we came to the fourth, 
formed by the wall of the church, and heard the voice of 
a priest behind a curtain that fell down before a door. 
Lifting it aside, we went in, and found ourselves in the 
ancient chapter-house, a large interior formed by two 
great pointed arches crossing one another in a groined 
roof. The broad spaces of the walls were entirely cov- 
ered with frescos that are rich even now, and must have 
glowed with an inexpressible splendor, when fresh from 
the artists' hands, five hundred years ago. There is 
a long period, during which frescos illuminate a church 
or a hall in a way that no other adornment can ; when 
this epoch of brightness is past, they become the dreari- 
est ghosts of perished magnificence This chap- 
ter-house is the only part of the church that is now used 
for the purposes of public worship. There are several 
confessionals, and two chapels or shrines, each with its 
lighted tapers. A priest performed mass while we were 
there, and several persons, as usual, stepped in to do 
a little devotion, either praying on their own account, 
or uniting with the ceremony that was going forward. 
One man was followed by two little dogs, and in the 
midst of his prayers, as one of the dogs was inclined to 
stray about the church, he kept snapping his fingers to 
call him back. The cool, dusky refreshment of these 
holy places, affording such a refuge from the hot noon of 
the streets and piazzas, probably suggests devotional ideas 



1858.] ITALY. 71 

to the people, and it may be, when they are praying, 
they feel a breath of Paradise fanning them. If we 
conld only see any good effects in their daily life, we 
might deem it an excellent thing to be able to find incense 
and a prayer always ascending, to which every individual 
may join his own. I really wonder that the Catholics 
are not better men and women. 

When we had looked at the old frescos, .... we 
emerged into the cloister again, and thence ventured 
into a passage which would have led us to the Chios tro 
Grande, where strangers, and especially ladies, have no 
right to go. It was a secluded corridor, very neatly 
kept, bordered with sepulchral monuments, and at the 
end appeared a vista of cypress-trees, which indeed were 
but an illusory perspective, being painted in fresco. 
While we loitered along, .... the sacristan appeared 
and offered to show us the church, and led us into the 
transept on the right of the high altar, and ushered us into 
the sacristy, where we found two artists copying some 
of Era Angelico's pictures. These were painted on the 
three wooden leaves of a triptych, and, as usual, were 
glorified with a great deal of gilding, so that they seemed 
to float in the brightness of a heavenly element. Solo- 
mon speaks of " apples- of gold in pictures of silver." The 
pictures of Era Angelico, and other artists of that age, 
are really pictures of gold; and it is wonderful to^see 
how rich the effect, and how much delicate beauty is 
attained (by Fra Angelico at least) along with it. His 
miniature-heads appear to me much more successful than 
his larger ones. In a monkish point of view, however, 
the chief value of the triptych of which I am speaking 
does not lie in the pictures, for they merely serve as the 
framework of some relics, which are set all round the 
edges of the three leaves. They consist of little bits and 



72 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

fragments of bones, and of packages carefully tied ap in 
silk, the contents of which are signified in Gothic letters 
appended to each parcel. The sacred vessels of the 
church are likewise kept in the sacristy 

He-entering the transept, our guide showed us the 
chapel of the Strozzi family, which is accessible by a 
flight of steps from the floor of the church. The walls 
of this chapel are covered with frescos by Orcagna, rep- 
resenting around the altar the Last Judgment, and on 
one of the walls heaven and the assembly of the blessed, 
and on the other, of course, hell. I cannot speak as to 
the truth of the representation ; but, at all events, it 
was purgatory to look at it 

We next passed into the choir, which occupies the 
extreme end of the church behind the great square 
mass of the high altar, and is surrounded with a double 
row of ancient oaken seats of venerable shape and carv- 
ing. The choir is illuminated by a threefold Gothic 
window, full of richly painted glass, worth all the fres- 
cos that ever stained a wall or ceiling ; but these walls, 
nevertheless, are adorned with frescos by Ghirlandaio, 
and it is easy to see must once have made a magnifi- 
cent appearance. I really was sensible of a sad and 
ghostly beauty in many of the figures; but all the 
bloom, the magic of the painter's touch, his topmost art, 
have long ago been rubbed off, the white plaster showing 
through the colors in spots, and even in large spaces. 
Any other sort of ruin acquires a beauty proper to its 
decay, and often superior to that of its pristine state ; 
but the ruin of a picture, especially of a fresco, is wholly 
unredeemed ; and, moreover, it dies so slowly that many 
generations are likely to be saddened by it. 

We next saw the famous picture of the Virgin by 
Cimabue, which was deemed a miracle in its day, .... 



1858.] ITALY. 73 

and still brightens the sombre walls with the lustre of 
its gold ground. As to its artistic merits, it seems to 
me that the babe Jesus has a certain air of state and 
dignity; but I could see no charm whatever in the 
broad-faced Virgin, and it would relieve my mind and 
rejoice my spirit if the picture were borne out of the 
church in another triumphal procession (like the one 
which brought it there), and reverently burnt. This 
should be the final honor paid to all human works that 
have served a good office in their day, for when their 
day is over, if still galvanized into false life, they do 

harm instead of good The interior of Santa 

Maria Novella is spacious and in the Gothic style, though 
differing from English churches of that order of archi- 
tecture. It is not now kept open to the public, nor 
were any of the shrines and chapels, nor even the high 
altar itself, adorned and lighted for worship. The pic- 
tures that decorated the shrines along the side aisles 
have been removed, leaving bare, blank spaces of brick- 
work, very dreary and desolate to behold. This is al- 
most worse than a black oil-painting or a faded fresco. 
The church was much injured by the French, and after- 
wards by the Austrians, both powers having quartered 
their troops within the holy precincts. Its old walls, 
however, are yet stalwart enough to outlast another set 
of frescos, and to see the beginning and the end o£ a 
new school of painting as long-lived as Cimabue's. I 
should be sorry to have the church go to decay, because 
it was here that Boccaccio's dames and cavaliers en- 
countered one another, and formed their plan of retreat- 
ing into the country during the plague 

At the door we bought a string of beads, with a small 
crucifix appended, in memory of the place. The beads 
seem to be of a grayish, pear-shaped seed, and the seller 

w OL. II. 4 



74 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-EOOKS. [1858. 

assured us that they were the tears of St. Job. They 
were cheap, probably because Job shed so many tears 
in his lifetime. 

It being still early in the day, we went to the Uffizi 
gallery, and after loitering a good while among the pic- 
tures, were so fortunate as to iind the room of the 
bronzes open. The first object that attracted us was 
John of Bologna's Mercury, poising himself on tiptoe, 
and looking not merely buoyant enough to float, but as 
if he possessed more than the eagle's power of lofty 
flight. It seems a wonder that he did not absolutely 
fling himself into the air when the artist gave him the 
last touch. No bolder work was ever achieved ; nothing 
so full of life has been done since. I was much inter- 
ested, too, in the original little wax model, two feet 
high, of Benvenuto Cellini's Perseus. The wax seems 
to be laid over a wooden framework, and is but roughly 
finished off. ... . 

In an adjoining room are innumerable specimens of 
Roman and Etruscan bronzes, great and small. A bronze 
Chimera did not strike me as very ingeniously conceived, 
the goat's head being merely an adjunct, growing out of 
the back of the monster, without possessing any original 
and substantive share in its nature. The snake's head is 
at the end of the tail. The object most really interesting 
was a Roman eagle, the standard of the Twenty-fourth 
Legion, about the size of a blackbird. 

July Stk. — On the 6th we went to the Church of the 
Annunziata, which stands in the piazza of the same name. 
On the corner of the Via dei Servi is the palace which I 
suppose to be the one that Browning makes the scene of 
his poem, "The Statue and the Bust," and the statue of 
Duke Ferdinand sits stately on horseback, with his face 



1858.] ITALY. 75 

turned towards the window, where the lady ought to ap- 
pear. Neither she nor the bust, however, was visible, at 
least not to my eyes. The church occupies one side of 
the piazza, and in front of it, as likewise on the two ad- 
joining sides of the square, there are pillared arcades, 
constructed by Brunelleschi or his scholars. After pass- 
ing through these arches, and still before entering the 
church itself, you come to an ancient cloister, which is 
now quite enclosed in glass as a means of preserving 
some frescos of Andrea del Sarto and others, which are 
considered valuable! 

Passing the threshold of the church, we were quite 
dazzled by the splendor that shone upon us from the 
ceiling of the nave, the great parallelograms of which, 
viewed from one end, look as if richly embossed all over 
with gold. The whole interior, indeed, has an effect of 
brightness and magnificence, the walls being covered 
mostly with light-colored marble, into which are inlaid 
compartments of rarer and richer marbles. The pillars 
and pilasters, too, are of variegated marbles, with Corin- 
thian capitals, that shine just as brightly as if they were 
of solid gold, so faithfully have they been gilded and 
burnished. The pavement is formed of squares of black 
and white marble. There are no side aisles, but ranges 
of chapels, with communication from one to another, 
stand round the whole extent of the nave and choir ; all 
of marble, all decorated with pictures, statues, busts, and 
mural monuments ; all worth, separately, a day's inspec- 
tion. The high altar is of great beauty and richness, 
.... and also the tomb of John of Bologna in a chapel 
at the remotest extremity of the church. In this chapel 
there are some bas-reliefs by him, and also a large cruci- 
fix, with a marble Christ upon it. I think there has 
been no better sculptor since the days of Phidias 



76 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

The church was founded by seven gentlemen of Flor- 
ence, who formed themselves into a religious order called 
" Servants of Mary." Many miraculous cures were 
wrought here ; and the church, in consequence, was so 
thickly hung with votive offerings of legs, arms, and 
other things in wax, that they used to tumble upon peo- 
ple's heads, so that finally they were all cleared out as 
rubbish. The church is still, I should imagine, looked 
upon as a place of peculiar sanctity ; for while we were 
there it had an unusual number of kneeling worshippers, 
and persons were passing from shrine to shrine all round 
the nave and choir, praying awhile at each, and thus per- 
forming a pilgrimage at little cost of time and labor. 
One old gentleman, I observed, carried a cushion or pad, 
just big enough for one knee, on which he carefully ad- 
justed his genuflexions before each altar. An old woman 
in the choir prayed alternately to us and to the saints, 
with most success, I hope, in her petitions to the latter, 
though certainly her prayers to ourselves seemed the 
more fervent of the two. 

When we had gone entirely round the church, we 
came at last to the chapel of the Annunziata, which 
stands on the floor of the nave, on the left hand as we 
enter. It is a very beautiful piece of architecture, — a 
sort of canopy of marble, supported upon pillars ; and 
its magnificence within, in marble and silver, and all 
manner of holy decoration, is quite indescribable. It 
was built four hundred years ago, by Pietro de' Medici, 
and has probably been growing richer ever since. The 
altar is entirely of silver, richly embossed. As many 
people were kneeling on the steps before it as could find 
room, and most of them, when they finished their prayers, 
ascended the steps, kissed over and over again the mar- 
gin of the silver altar, laid their foreheads upon it, and 



1858.] ITALY. 77 

then deposited an offering in a box placed upon the 
altar's top. Erom the dulness of the chink in the only 
case when I heard it, I judged it to be a small copper 
coin. 

In the inner part of this chapel is preserved a miracu- 
lous picture of the " Santissinia Annunziata," painted by 
angels, and held in such holy repute that forty thousand 
dollars have lately been expended in providing a new 
crown for the sacred personage represented. The picture 
is now veiled behind a curtain ; and as it is a fresco, and 
is not considered to do much credit to the angelic artists, 
I was well contented not to see it. 

We found a side door of the church admitting us into 
the great cloister, which has a walk of intersecting 
arches round its four sides, paved with flat tombstones^ 
and broad enough for six people to walk abreast. On 
the walls, in the semicircles of each successive arch, are 
frescos representing incidents in the lives of the seven 
founders of the church, and all the lower part of the wall 
is incrusted with marble inscriptions to the memory of 
the dead, and mostly of persons who have died not very 
long ago. The space enclosed by the cloistered walk, 
usually made cheerful by green grass, has a pavement of 
tombstones laid in regular rauges. In the centre is a 
stone octagonal structure, which at first I supposed to 
be the tomb of some deceased mediaeval personage ; but, 
on approachiug, I found it a well, with its bucket hang- 
ing within the curb, and looking as if it were in constant 
use. The surface of the water lay deep beneath the 
deepest dust of the dead people, and thence threw up its 
picture of the sky ; but I think it would not be a mod- 
erate thirst that would induce me to drink of that well. 

On leaving the church we bought a little gilt cru- 
cifix 



78 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

On Sunday evening I paid a short visit to Mr. Powers, 
and, as usual, was entertained and instructed with his 
conversation. It did not, indeed, turn upon artistical 
subjects ; but the artistic is only one side of his char- 
acter, and, I think, not the principal side. He might 
have achieved valuable success as an engineer and mech- 
anician. He gave a dissertation on flying-machines, 
evidently from his own experience, and came to the con- 
clusion that it is impossible to fly by means of steam or 
any other motive-power now known to man. No force 
hitherto attained would suffice to lift the engine which 
generated it. He appeared to anticipate that flying will 
be a future mode of locomotion, but not till the moral 
condition of mankind is so improved as to obviate the 
bad uses to which the power might be applied. Another 
topic discussed was a cure for complaints of the chest 
by the inhalation of nitric acid ; and he produced his own 
apparatus for that purpose, being merely a tube inserted 
into a bottle containing a small quantity of the acid, just 
enough to produce the gas for inhalation. He told me, 
too, a remedy for burns accidentally discovered by him- 
self; viz., to wear wash-leather, or something equivalent, 
over the burn, and keep it constantly wet. It prevents 
all pain, and cures by the exclusion of the air. He 
evidently has a great tendency to empirical remedies, 
and would have made a natural doctor of mighty po- 
tency, possessing the shrewd sense, inventive faculty, 
and self-reliance that such persons require. It is very 
singular that there should be an ideal vein in a man of 
this character. 

This morning he called to see me, with intelligence of 
the failure of the new attempt to lay the electric cable 
between England and America; and here, too, it appears 
the misfortune might have been avoided if a plan of his 



1858.] ITALY. 79 

own for laying the cable had been adopted. He ex- 
plained his process, and made it seem as practicable as 
to put up a bell-wire. I do not remember how or why 
(but appositely) he repeated some verses, from a pretty 
little ballad about fairies, that had struck his fancy, and 
he wound up his talk with some acute observations on 
the characters of General Jackson and other public men. 
He told an anecdote, illustrating the old general's small 
acquaintance with astronomical science, and his force 
of will in compelling a whole dinner-party of better in- 
structed people than himself to succumb to him in an 
argument about eclipses and the planetary system gen- 
erally. Powers witnessed the scene himself. He thinks 
that General Jackson was a man of the keenest and 
surest intuitions, in respect to men and measures, but 
with no power of reasoning out his own conclusions, or 
of imparting them intellectually to other persons. Men 
who have known Jackson intimately, and in great affairs, 
would not agree as to this intellectual and argumenta- 
tive deficiency, though they would fully allow the intui- 
tive faculty. I have heard General Pierce tell a striking 
instance of Jackson's power of presenting his own view 
of a subject with irresistible force to the mind of the 
auditor. President Buchanan has likewise expressed to 
me as high admiration of Jackson as I ever heard one 
man award to another. Surely he was a great man, and 
his native strength, as well of intellect as character, 
compelled every man to be his tool that came within his 
reach; and the more cunuing the individual might be, 
it served only to make him the sharper tool. 

Speaking of Jackson, and remembering Raphael's pic- 
ture of Pope Julius II., the best portrait in the whole 
world, and excellent in all its repetitions, I wish it had 
been possible for Raphael to paint General Jackson ! 



80 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

Referring again to General Jackson's intuitions, and 
to Powers's idea that he was unable to render a reason 
to himself or others for what he chose to do, I should 
have thought that this very probably might have been 
the case, were there not such strong evidence to the con- 
trary. The highest, or perhaps any high administrative 
ability is intuitive, and precedes argument, and rises 
above it. It is a revelation of the very thing to be done, 
and its propriety and necessity are felt so strongly that 
very likely it cannot be talked about ; if the doer can 
likewise talk, it is an additional and gratuitous faculty, 
as little to be expected as that a poet should be able to 
write an explanatory criticism on his own poem. The 
English overlook this in their scheme of government, 
which requires that the members of the national execu- 
tive should be orators, and the readiest and most fluent 
orators that can be found. The very fact (on which 
they are selected) that they are men of words makes 
it improbable that they are likewise men of deeds. And 
it is only tradition and old custom, founded on an obso- 
lete state of things, that assigns any value to parliament- 
ary oratory. The world has done with it, except as an 
intellectual pastime. The speeches have no effect till 
they are converted into newspaper paragraphs ; and they 
had better be composed as such, in the first place, and 
oratory reserved for churches, courts of law, and public 
dinner-tables. 



lOtk. — My wife and I went yesterday forenoon 
to see the Church of San Marco, with which is connected 

a convent of Dominicans The interior is not less 

than three or four hundred years old, and is in the 
classic style, with a flat ceiling, gilded, and a lofty arch, 
supported by pillars, between the nave and choir. There 



1858.] ITALY. 81 

are no side aisles, but ranges of shrines on botli sides of 
the nave, each beneath its own pair of pillars and pedi- 
ments. The pavement is of brick, with here and there a 
marble tombstone inlaid. It is not a magnificent church ; 
but looks dingy with time and apparent neglect, though 
rendered sufficiently interesting by statues of mediaeval 
date by John of Bologna and other old sculptors, and 
by monumental busts and bas-reliefs : also, there is a 
wooden crucifix by Giotto, with ancient gilding on it; 
and a painting of Christ, which was considered a wonder- 
ful work in its day. Each shrine, or most of them, at any 
rate, had its dark old picture, and there is a very old and 
hideous mosaic of the Virgin and two saints, which I 
looked at very slightly, with the purpose of immediately 
forgetting it. Savonarola, the reforming monk, was a 
brother of this convent, and was torn from its shelter, to 
be subsequently hanged and burnt in the Grand Ducal 
Piazza. A large chapel in the left transept is of the 
Salviati family, dedicated to St. Anthony, and decorated 
with several statues of saints, and with some old frescos. 
When we had more than sufficiently examined these, the 
custode proposed to show us some frescos of Era An- 
gelico, and conducted us into a large cloister, under the 
arches of which, and beneath a covering of glass, he 
pointed to a picture of St. Dominic kneeling at the Cross. 
There are two or three others by the angelic friar in dif- 
ferent parts of the cloister, and a regular series, filling up 
all the arches, by various artists. Its four-sided, clois- 
tered walk surrounds a square, open to the sky as usual, 
and paved with gray stones that have no inscriptions, but 
probably are laid over graves. Its walls, however, are 
iucrusted, and the walk itself is paved with monumental 
inscriptions on marble, none of which, so far as I ob- 
served, were of ancient date. Either the fashion of thus 

4* F 



82 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

commemorating the dead is not ancient in Florence, or 
the old tombstones have been removed to make room for 
new ones. I do not know where the monks themselves 
have their burial-place ; perhaps in an inner cloister, 
which we did not see. All the inscriptions here, I be- 
lieve, were in memory of persons not connected with the 
convent. 

A door in the wall of the cloister admitted us into the 
chapter-house, its interior moderately spacious, with a 
roof formed by intersecting arches. Three sides of the 
walls were covered with blessed whitewash ; but on the 
fourth side, opposite to the entrance, was a great fresco 
of the Crucifixion, by Fra Angelico, surrounded with a 
border or pictured framework, in which are represented 
the heads of saints, prophets, and sibyls, as large as life. 
The cross of the Saviour and those of the thieves were 
painted against a dark red sky ; the figures upon them 
were lean and attenuated, evidently the vague conceptions 
of a man who had never seen a naked figure. Beneath, 
was a multitude of people, most of whom were saints 
who had lived and been martyred long after the Crucifix- 
ion ; and some of these had wounds from which gilded 
rays shone forth, as if the inner glory and blessedness of 
the holy men blazed through them. It is a very ugly 
picture, and its ugliness is not that of strength and vigor, 
but of weakness and incompetency. Fra Angelico should 
have confined himself to miniature heads, in which his 
delicacy of touch and minute labor often produce an ex- 
cellent effect. The custode informed us that there were 
more frescos of this pious artist in the interior of the 
convent, into which I might be allowed admittance, but 
not my wife. I declined seeing them, and heartily 
thanked heaven for my escape. 

Returning through the church, we stopped to look at 



1858.] ITALY. 83 

a shrine on the right of the entrance, where several 
wax candles were lighted, and the steps of which were 
crowded with worshippers. It was evidently a spot of 
special sanctity, and, approaching the steps, we saw, be- 
hind a gilded framework of stars and protected by glass, 
a wooden image of the Saviour, naked, covered with 
spots of blood, crowned with thorns, and expressing all 
the human wretchedness that the carver's skill could 
represent. The whole shrine, within the glass, was hung 
with offerings, as well of silver and gold as of tinsel and 
trumpery, and the body of Christ glistened with gold 
chains and ornaments, and with watches of silver and 
gold, some of which appeared to be of very old manu- 
facture, and others might be new. Amid all this glitter 
the face of pain and grief looked forth, not a whit com- 
forted. While we stood there, a woman, who had been 
praying, arose from her knees and laid an offering of a 
single flower upon the shrine. 

The corresponding arch, on the opposite side of the 
entrance, contained a wax-work within a large glass 
case, representing the Nativity. I do not remember 
how the Blessed Infant looked, but the Virgin was 
gorgeously dressed in silks, satins, and gauzes, with 
spangles and ornaments of all kinds, and, I believe, 
brooches of real diamonds on her bosom. Her attire, 
judging from its freshness and newness of glitter, might 
have been put on that very morning. 

July 13M. — We went for the second time, this morn- 
ing, to the Academy of Eine Arts, and I looked pretty 
thoroughly at the Pre-Raphaelite pictures, few of which 
are really worth looking at nowadays. Cimabue and 
Giotto might certainly be dismissed, henceforth and for- 
ever, without any detriment to the cause of good art. 



84 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

There is what seems to me a better picture than either 
of these has produced, by Bonamico Buffalmacco, an art- 
ist of about their date or not long after. The first real 
picture in the series is the " Adoration of the Magi/' by 
Gentile da Eabriano, a really splendid work in all senses, 
with noble and beautiful figures in it, aiid a crowd of 
personages, managed with great skill. Three pictures 
by Perugino are the only other ones I cared to look at. 
In one of these, the face of the Virgin who holds the 
dead Christ on her knees has a deeper expression of woe 
than can ever have been painted since. After Perugino 
the pictures cease to be interesting ; the art came for- 
ward with rapid strides, but the painters and their pro- 
ductions do not take nearly so much bold of the specta- 
tor as before. They all paint better than Giotto and 
Cimabue, — in some respects better than Perugino ; but 
they paint in vain, probably because they were not 
nearly so much in earnest, and meant far less, though 
possessing the dexterity to express far more. Andrea 
del Sarto appears to have been a good painter, yet I 
always turn away readily from his pictures. I looked 
again, and for a good while, at Carlo Dolce's portrait 
of the Eternal Eather, for it is a miracle and master- 
piece of absurdity, and almost equally a miracle of pic- 
torial art. It is the All-powerless, a fair-haired, soft, 
consumptive deity, with a mouth that has fallen open 
through very weakness. He holds one hand on his 
stomach, as if the wickedness and wretchedness of man- 
kind made him qualmish ; and he is looking down out of 
Heaven with an expression of pitiable appeal, or as if 
seeking somewhere for assistance in his heavy task of 
ruling the universe. You might fancy such a being fall- 
ing on his knees before a strong-willed man, and be- 
seeching him to take the reins of omnipotence out of his 



1858.] ITALY. 85 

hands. No wonder that wrong gets the better of right, 
and that good and ill are confounded, if the Supreme 
Head were as here depicted ; for I never saw, and no- 
body else ever saw, so perfect a representation of a per- 
son burdened with a task infinitely above his strength. 
If Carlo Dolce had been wicked enough to know what 
he was doing, the picture would have been most blasphe- 
mous, — a satire, in the very person of the Almighty, 
against all incompetent rulers, and against the rickety 
machine and crazy action of the universe. Heaven for- 
give me for such thoughts as this picture has suggested ! 
It must be added that the great original defect in the 
character as here represented is an easy good-nature. 
I wonder what Michael Angelo would have said to this 
painting. 

In the large, enclosed court connected with the 
Academy there are a number of statues, bas-reliefs, 
and casts, and what was especially interesting, the vague 
and rude commencement of a statue of St. Matthew by 
Michael Angelo. The conceptions of this great sculptor 
were so godlike that he seems to have been discontented 
at not likewise possessing the godlike attribute of creat- 
ing and embodying them with an instantaneous thought, 
and therefore we often find sculptures from his hand 
left at the critical point of their struggle to get out of 
the marble. The statue of St. Matthew looks like the 
antediluvian fossil of a human being of an epoch when 
humanity was mightier and more majestic than now, 
long ago imprisoned in stone, and half uncovered again. 

July \Uh. — We went yesterday forenoon to see the 
Bargello. I do not know anything more picturesque in 
Florence than the great interior court of this ancient 
Palace of the Podesta, with the lofty height of the 



8G FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

edifice looking down into the enclosed space, dark and 
stem, and the armorial bearings of a long succession of 
magistrates carved in stone upon the walls, a garland, as 
it were, of these Gothic devices extending quite round 
the court. The best feature of the whole is the broad 
stone staircase, with its heavy balustrade, ascending 
externally from the court to the iron-grated door in the 
second story. We passed the sentinels under the lofty 
archway that communicates with the street, and went up 
the stairs without being questioned or impeded. At the 
iron-grated door, however, we were met by two officials 
in uniform, who courteously informed us that there was 
nothing to be exhibited in the Bargello except an old 
chapel containing some frescos by Giotto, and that these 
could only be seen by making a previous appointment 
with the custode, he not being constantly on hand. I 
was not sorry to escape the frescos, though one of them 
is a portrait of Dante. 

We next went to the Church of the Badia, which is 
built in the form of a Greek cross, with a flat roof em- 
bossed and once splendid with now tarnished gold. The 
pavement is of brick, and the walls of dark stone, similar 
to that of the interior of the cathedral {pietra serena), 
and there being, according to Florentine custom, but 
little light, the effect was sombre, though the cool 
gloomy dusk was refreshing after the hot turmoil and 
dazzle of the adjacent street. Here we found three or 
four Gothic tombs, with figures of the deceased persons 
stretched in marble slumber upon them. There were 
likewise a picture or two, which it was impossible to 
see; indeed, I have hardly ever met with a picture in a 
church that was not utterly wasted and thrown away in 
the deep shadows of the chapel it was meant to adorn. 
If there is the remotest chance of its being seen, the 



1858.] ITALY. 87 

sacristan hangs a curtain before it for the sake of his 
fee for withdrawing it. In the chapel of the Bianco 
family we saw (if it could be called seeing) what is 
considered the finest oil-painting of Era Filippo Lippi. 
It was evidently hung with reference to a lofty window 
on the other side of the church, whence sufficient light 
might fall upon it to show a picture so vividly painted 
as this is, and as most of Fra Filippo Lippi's are. The 
window was curtained, however, and the chapel so dusky 
that I could make out nothing. 

Several persons came in to say their prayers during 
the little time that we remained in the church, and as we 
came out we passed a good woman who sat knitting in 
the coolness of the vestibule, which was lined with mural 
tombstones. Probably she spends the day thus, keeping 
up the little industry of her fingers, slipping into the 
church to pray whenever a devotional impulse swells into 
her heart, and asking an alms as often as she sees a per- 
son of charitable aspect. 

From the church we went to the Uffizi gallery, and rein- 
spected the greater part of it pretty faithfully. We had 
the good fortune, too, again to get admittance into the 
cabinet of bronzes, where we admired anew the wonder- 
ful airiness of John of Bologna's Mercury, which, as I 
now observed, rests on nothing substantial, but on the 
breath of a zephyr beneath him. We also saw a bronze 
bust of one of the Medici by Benvenuto Cellini, and a 
thousand other things the curiosity of which is overlaid 
by their multitude. The Roman eagle, which I have 
recorded to be about the size of a blackbird, I now saw 
to be as large as a pigeon. 

On our way towards the door of the gallery, at our 
departure, we saw the cabinet of gems open, and again 
feasted our eyes with its concentrated brilliancies and 



88 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

magnificences. Among them were two crystal cups, 
with engraved devices, and covers of enamelled gold, 
wrought by Benvenuto Cellini, and wonderfully beau- 
tiful. But it is idle to mention one or two things, 
when all are so beautiful and curious ; idle, too, because 
language is not burnished gold, with here and there a 
brighter word flashing like a diamond ; and therefore no 
amount of talk will give the slightest idea of one of these 
elaborate handiworks. 

July %7th. — I seldom go out nowadays, having already 
seen Florence tolerably well, and the streets being very 
hot, and myself having been engaged in sketching out a 
romance,* which whether it will ever come to anything 
is a point yet to be decided. At any rate, it leaves me 
little heart for journalizing and describing new things ; 
and six months of uninterrupted monotony would be 
mo-re valuable to me just now, than the most brilliant 
succession of novelties. 

Yesterday I spent a good deal of time in watching 
the setting out of a wedding party from our door ; the 
bride being the daughter of an English lady, the Countess 

of . After all, there was nothing very characteristic. 

The bridegroom is a young man of English birth, son of 

the Countess of St. G , who inhabits the third piano 

of this Casa del Bello. The very curious part of the 
spectacle was the swarm of beggars who haunted the 
street all day; the most wretched mob conceivable, 
chiefly women, with a few blind people, and some old 
men and boys. Among these the bridal party distrib- 
uted their beneficence in the shape of some handfuls 
of copper, with here and there a half-paul intermixed; 

* The Marble Faun. — Ed. 



1858.] ITALY. 89 

whereupon the whole wretched mob flung themselves in 
a heap upon the pavement, struggling, fighting, tum- 
bling one over another, and then looking up to the 
windows with petitionary gestures for more and more, 
and still for more. Doubtless, they had need enough, 
for they looked thin, sickly, ill-fed, and the women ugly 
to the last degree. The wedding party had a breakfast 
above stairs, which lasted till four o'clock, and then the 
bridegroom took his bride in a barouche and pair, which 
was already crammed with his own luggage and hers. 
.... He was a well-looking young man enough, in a 
uniform of Trench gray with silver epaulets ; more 
agreeable in aspect than his bride, who, I think, will 
have the upper hand in their domestic life. I observed 
that, on getting into the barouche, he sat down on her 
dress, as he could not well help doing, and received a 
slight reprimand in consequence. After their departure, 
the wedding guests took their leave ; the most note- 
worthy person being the Pope's Nuncio (the young man 
being son of the Pope's Chamberlain, and one of the 
Grand Duke's Noble Guard), an ecclesiastical personage 
in purple stockings, attended by two priests, all of whom 
got into a coach, the driver and footmen of which wore 
gold-laced cocked hats and other splendors. 

To-day I paid a short visit to the gallery of the 
Pitti Palace. I looked long at a Madonna of Raphael's, 
the one which is usually kept in the Grand Duke's 
private apartments, only brought into the public gal- 
lery for the purpose of being copied. It is the holiest 
of all Raphael's Madonnas, with a great reserve in the 
expression, a sense of being apart, and yet with the 
utmost tenderness and sweetness ; although she drops 
her eyelids before her like a veil, as it were, and has a 
primness of eternal virginity about the mouth. It is 



90 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

one of Raphael's earlier works, when lie mixed more 
religious sentiment with his paint than afterwards. Pe- 
rugino's pictures give the impression of greater sincerity 
and earnestness than Raphael's, though the genius of 
Raphael often gave him miraculous vision. 

July 28tk. — Last evening we went to the Powers's, 
and sat with them on the terrace, at the top of the house, 
till nearly ten o'clock. It was a delightful, calm, summer 
evening, and we were elevated far above all the adjacent 
roofs, and had a prospect of the greater part of Florence 
and its towers, and the surrounding hills, while directly 
beneath us rose the trees of a garden, and they hardly 
sent their summits higher than we sat. At a little dis- 
tance, with only a house or two between, was a theatre 
in full action, the Teatro Goldoni, which is an open am- 
phitheatre, in the ancient fashion, without any roof. We 
could see the upper part of the proscenium, and, had we 
been a little nearer, might have seen the whole perform- 
ance, as did several boys who crept along the tops of the 
surrounding houses. As it was, we heard the music and 
the applause, and now and then an actor's stentorian 

tones, when we chose to listen. Mrs. P and my wife, 

U and Master Bob, sat in a group together, and 

chatted in one corner of our aerial drawing-room, while 
Mr. Powers and myself leaned against the parapet, and 
talked of innumerable things. When the clocks struck 
the hour, or the bells rang from the steeples, as they are 
continually doing, I spoke of the sweetness of the Flor- 
ence bells, the tones of some of them being as if the bel 1 
were full of liquid melody, and shed it through the air 
on being upturned. I had supposed, in my lack of 
musical ear, that the bells of the Campanile were the 
sweetest ; but Mr. Powers says that there is a defect in 



1858.] ITALY. 91 

their tone, and that the bell of the Palazzo Vecchio is the 
most melodious he ever heard. Then he spoke of his 
having been a manufacturer of organs, or, at least, of 
reeds for organs, at one period of his life. I wonder 
what he has not been ! He told me of an invention of 
his in the musical line, a jewsharp with two tongues ; 
and by and by he produced it for my inspection. It was 
carefully kept in a little wooden case, and was very 
neatly and elaborately constructed, with screws to tighten 
it, and a silver centre-piece between the two tongues. 
Evidently a great deal of thought had been bestowed on 
this little harp ; but Mr. Powers told me that it was an 
utter failure, because the tongues were apt to interfere 
and jar with one another, although the strain of music 
was very sweet and melodious — as he proved, by play- 
ing on it a little — when everything went right. It was 
a youthful production, and he said that its failure had 
been a great disappointment to him at the time ; where- 
upon I congratulated him that his failures had been in 
small matters, and his successes in great ones. 

We talked, furthermore, about instinct and reason, 
and whether the brute creation have souls, and, if they 
have none, how justice is to be done them for their suf- 
ferings here ; and Mr. Powers came finally to the con- 
clusion that brutes suffer only in appearance, and that 
God enjoys for them all that they seem to enjoy, and that 
man is the only intelligent and sentient being. We 
reasoned high about other states of being ; and I sug- 
gested the possibility that there might be beings inhab- 
iting this earth, contemporaneously with us, and close 
beside us, but of whose existence and whereabout we 
could have no perception, nor they of ours, because we 
are endowed with different sets of senses ; for certainly 
it was i-n God's power to create beings who should com- 



92 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

municate with nature by innumerable other senses than 
those few which we possess. Mr. Powers gave hospi- 
table reception to this idea, and said that it had occurred 
to himself; and he has evidently thought much and 
earnestly about such matters ; but is apt to let bis idea 
crystallize into a theory, before he can have sufficient 
data for it. He is a Swedenborgian in faith. 

The moon had risen behiad the trees, while we were 
talking, and Powers intimated his idea that beings anal- 
ogous to men — men in everything except the modifica- 
tions necessary to adapt them to their physical circum- 
stances — inhabited the planets, and peopled them with 
beautiful shapes. Each planet, however, must have its 
own standard of the beautiful, I suppose ; and probably 
his sculptor's eye would not see much to admire in the 
proportions of an inhabitant of Saturn. 

The atmosphere of Florence, at least when we ascend 
a little way into it, suggests planetary speculations. Gal- 
ileo found it so, and Mr. Powers and I pervaded the 
whole universe ; but finally crept down his garret-stairs, 
and parted, with a friendly pressure of the hand. 

VILLA MONTANTO. 

MONTE BENI. 

August 2d. — We had grown weary of the heat of 
Florence within the walls, .... there being little op- 
portunity for air and exercise except within the precincts 
of our little garden, which, also, we feared might breed 
malaria, or something akin to it. We have therefore 
taken this suburban villa for the two next months, and, 

yesterday morning, we all came out hither. J had 

preceded us M r ith B. P . The villa is on a hill called 

Bellosguardo, about a mile beyond the Porta Romana. 



1858.] ITALY. 93 

Less than half an hour's walk brought us, who were on 
foot, to the iron gate of our villa, which we found shut 
and locked. We shouted to be let in, and while waiting 
for somebody to appear, there was a good opportunity 
to contemplate the external aspect of the villa. After 

we had waited a few minutes, J came racing down 

to the gate, laughing heartily, and said that Bob and he 
had been in the house, but had come out, shutting the 
door behind them ; and as the door closed with a spring- 
lock, they could not get in again. Now as the key of 
the outer gate as well as that of the house itself was in 

the pocket of J 's coat, left inside, we were shut out 

of our own castle, and compelled to carry on a siege 
against it, without much likelihood of taking it, although 

the garrison was willing to surrender. But B. P 

called in the assistance of the contadini who cultivate the 
ground, and live in the farm-house close by ; and one of 
them got into a window by means of a ladder, so that 
the keys were got, the gates opened, and we finally ad- 
mitted. Before examining any other part of the house, 
we climbed to the top of the tower, which, indeed, is 
not very high, in proportion to its massive square. 
Very probably, its original height was abbreviated, in 
compliance with the law that lowered so many of the 
fortified towers of noblemen within the walls of Flor- 
ence The stairs were not of stone, built in with 

the original mass of the tower, as in English castles, but 
of now decayed wood, which shook beneath us, and grew 
more and more crazy as we ascended. It will not be 
many years before the height of the tower becomes unat- 
tainable Near at hand, in the vicinity of the city, 

we saw the convent of Monte Olivetto, and other struc- 
tures that looked like convents, being built round an 
enclosed square ; also numerous white villas, many of 



94 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

•which had towers, like that we were standing upon, 
square and massive, some of them battlemented on the 
summit, and others apparently modernized for domestic 

purposes. Among them U pointed out Galileo's 

tower, whither she made an excursion the other day. 
It looked lower than our own, but seemed to stand on 
a higher elevation. We also saw the duke's villa, the 
Poggio, with a long avenue of cypresses leading from it, 
as if a funeral were going forth. And having wasted 
thus much of description on the landscape, I will finish 
with saying that it lacked only water to be a very fine 
one. It is strange what a difference the gleam of water 
makes, and how a scene awakens and comes to life 
wherever it is visible. The landscape, moreover, gives 
the beholder (at least, this beholder) a sense of oppres- 
sive sunshine and scanty shade, and does not incite a 
longing to wander through it on foot, as a really delight- 
ful landscape should. The vine, too, being cultivated in 
so trim a manner, does not suggest that idea of luxuri- 
ant fertility, which is the poetical notion of a vineyard. 
The olive-orchards have a pale and unlovely hue. An 
English view would have been incomparably richer in 
its never-fading green; and in my own country, the 
wooded hills would have been more delightful than these 
peaks and ridges of dreary and barren sunshine; and 
there would have been the bright eyes of half a dozen 
little lakes, looking heavenward, within an extent like 
that of the Val d' Arno. 

By and by mamma's carriage came along the dusty 
road, and passed through the iron gateway, which we 
had left open for her reception. We shouted down to 

her and II , and they waved their handkerchiefs 

upward to us ; and, on my way down, I met E, 

and the servant coming up through the ghostly rooms. 



1858.] ITALY. 95 

The rest of the day we spent mostly in exploring the 
premises. The house itself is of almost bewildering 
extent, insomuch that we might each of us have a suite 
of rooms individually. I have established myself on the 
ground-floor, where I have a dressing-room, a large 
vaulted saloon, hung with yellow damask, and a square 
writing-study, the walls and ceilings of the two latter 
apartments being ornamented with angels and cherubs 
aloft in fresco, and with temples, statues, vases, broken 
columns, peacocks, parrots, vines, and sunflowers be- 
low. I know not how many more saloons, anterooms, 
and sleeping-chambers there are on this same base- 
ment story, besides an equal number over them, and 
a great subterranean establishment. I saw some im- 
mense jars there, which T suppose were intended to hold 
oil; and iron kettles, for what purpose I cannot tell. 
There is also a chapel in the house, but it is locked up, 
and we cannot yet with certainty find the door of it, nor 
even, in this great wilderness of a house, decide abso- 
lutely what space the holy precincts occupy. Adjoining 

U 's chamber, which is in the tower, there is a little 

oratory, hung round with sacred prints of very ancient 
date, and with crucifixes, holy-water vases, and other 
consecrated things ; and here, within a glass case, there is 
the representation of an undraped little boy in wax, very 
prettily modelled, and holding up a heart that looks like 
a bit of red sealing-wax. If I had found him anywhere 
else I should have taken him for Cupid ; but, being in 
an oratory, I presume him to have some religious signifi- 
cation. In the servants' room a crucifix hung on one 
side of the bed, and a little vase for holy water, now 
overgrown with a cobweb, on the other ; and, no doubt, 
all the other sleeping-apartments would have been 
equally well provided, only that their occupants were to 
be heretics. 



96 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

The lower floor of the house is tolerably furnished, 
and looks cheerful with its frescos, although the bare 
pavements in every room give an impression of discom- 
fort. But carpets are universally taken up in Italy dur- 
ing summer-time. It must have been an immense family 
that could have ever filled such a house with life. We 
go on voyages of discovery, and when in quest of any 
particular point, are likely enough to fetch up at some 
other. This morning I had difficulty in finding my way 
again to the top of the tower. One of the most peculiar 
rooms is constructed close to the tower, under the roof 
of the main building, but with no external walls on two 
sides ! It is thus left open to the air, I presume for the 
sake of coolness. A parapet runs round the exposed 
sides for the sake of security. Some of the palaces in 
Florence have such open loggias in their upper stories, 
and I saw others on our journey hither, after arriving in 
Tuscany. 

The grounds immediately around the house are laid 
out in gravel- walks, and ornamented with shrubbery, 
and with what ought to be a grassy lawn ; but the Ital- 
ian sun is quite as little favorable to beauty of that kind 
as our own. I have enjoyed the luxury, however, almost 
for the first time since I left my hill-top at the Wayside, 
of flinging myself at full length on the ground without 
any fear of catching cold. Moist England would punish 
a man soundly for taking such liberties with her green- 
sward. A podere, or cultivated tract, comprising several 
acres, belongs to the villa, and seems to be fertile, like 
all the surrounding country. The possessions of differ- 
ent proprietors are not separated by fences, but only 
marked out by ditches ; and it seems possible to walk 
miles ajid miles, along the intersecting paths, without 
obstruction. The rural laborers, so far as I have ob- 



1858.] ITALY. 97 

served, go about in their shirt-sleeves, and look very 
much like tanned and sunburnt Yankees. 

Last night it was really a work of time and toil to go 
about making our defensive preparations for the night ; 
first closing the iron gate, then the ponderous and com- 
plicated fastenings of the house door, then the separate 
barricadoes of each iron-barred window on the lower 
floor, with a somewhat slighter arrangement above. 
There are bolts and shutters, however, for every window 
in the house, and I suppose it would not be amiss to put 
them all in use. Our garrison is so small that we must 
depend more upon the strength of our fortifications than 
upon our own active efforts in case of an attack. In 
England, in an insulated country house, we should need 
all these bolts and bars, and Italy is not thought to be 
the safer country of the two. 

It deserves to be recorded that the Count Montanto, a 
nobleman, and seemingly a man of property, should deem 
it worth while to let his country seat, and reside during 
the hot months in his palace in the city, for the considera- 
tion of a comparatively small sum a month. He seems to 
contemplate returning hither for the autumn and winter, 
when the situation must be very windy and bleak, and the 
cold death-like in these great halls; and then, it is to 
be supposed, he will let his palace in town. The Count, 
through the agency of his son, bargained very stiffly for, 
and finally obtained, three dollars in addition to the sum 
which we at first offered him. This indicates that even a 
little money is still a matter of great moment in Italy. 
Signor del Bello, who, I believe, is also a nobleman, hag- 
gled with us about some cracked crockery at our late 
residence, and finally demanded and received fifty cents 
in compensation. But this poor gentleman has been a 
spendthrift., and now acts as the agent of another. 

VOL. II. 5 G 



98 TRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOXS. [1858. 

August 3d. — Yesterday afternoon William Story 
called on me, he being on a day or two's excursion 
from Siena, where he is spending the summer with his 
family. He was very entertaining and conversative, as 
usual, and said, in reply to my question whether he were 
not anxious to return to Cleopatra, that he had al- 
ready sketched out another subject for sculpture, which 
would employ him during next winter. He told me, 
what I was glad to hear, that his sketches of Italian 
life, intended for the " Atlantic Monthly," and supposed 
to be lost, have been recovered. Speaking of the super- 
stitiousness of the Italians, he said that they universally 
believe in the influence of the evil eye. The evil influ- 
ence is supposed not to be dependent on the will of 
the possessor of the evil eye ; on the contrary, the per- 
sons to whom he wishes well are the very ones to suffer 
by it. It is oftener found in monks than in any other 
class of people; and on meeting a monk, and encoun- 
tering his eye, an Italian usually makes a defensive sign 
by putting both hands behind him, with the forefingers 
and little fingers extended, although it is a controverted 
point whether it be not more efficacious to extend the 
hand with its outspread fingers towards the suspected 
person. It is considered an evil omen to meet a monk 
on first going out for the day. The evil eye may ]|e 
classified with the phenomena of mesmerism. The Ital- 
ians, especially the Neapolitans, very generally wear 
amulets. Pio Nono, perhaps as being the chief of all 
monks and other religious people, is supposed to have 
an evil eye of tenfold malignancy ; and its effect has 
been seen in the ruin of all schemes for the public good 
so soon as they are favored by him. When the pillar 
in the Piazza de' Spagna, commemorative of his dogma 
of the Immaculate Conception, was to be erected, the 



1858.] ITALY. 99 

people of Home refused to be present, or to have any- 
thing to do with it, unless the pope promised to abstain 
from interference. His Holiness did promise, but so 
far broke his word as to be present one day while it 
was being erected, and on that day a man was killed. 
A little while ago there was a Lord Clifford, an English 
Catholic nobleman, residing in Italy, and, happening to 
come to Rome, he sent his compliments to Pio Nono, 
and requested the favor of an interview. The pope, as 
it happened, was indisposed, or for some reason could not 
see his lordship, but very kindly sent him his blessing. 
Those who knew of it shook their heads, and intimated 
that it would go ill with his lordship now that he had 
been blessed by Pio Nono, and the very next day poor 
Lord Clifford was dead ! His Holiness had better con- 
strue the scriptural injunction literally, and take to 
blessing his enemies. 

I walked into town with J this morning, and, 

meeting a monk in the Via Pomace, I thought it no 
more than reasonable, as the good father fixed his eyes 
on me, to provide against the worst by putting both 
hands behind me, with the forefingers and little fingers 
stuck out. 

In speaking of the little oratory connected with U 's 

chamber, I forgot to mention the most remarkable object 

in it. .It is a skull, the size of life (or death) 

This part of the house must be very old, probably coeval 

with the tower. The ceiling of U 's apartment is 

vaulted with intersecting arches ; and adjoining it is a 
very large saloon, likewise with a vaulted and groined 
ceiling, and having a cushioned divan running all round 
the walls. The windows of these rooms look out on the 
Val d' Arno. 

The apartment above this saloon is of the same size, 



100 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

and hung with engraved portraits, printed on large sheets 
by the score and hundred together, and enclosed in 
wooden frames. They comprise the whole series of 
Roman emperors, the succession of popes, the kings of 
Europe, the doges of Venice, and the sultans of Turkey. 
The engravings bear different dates between 1685 and 
thirty years later, and were executed at Rome. 

August Uh. — We ascended our tower yesterday after- 
noon to see the sunset. In my first sketch of the Val 
d' Arno I said that the Arno seemed to hold its course 
near the bases of the hills. I now observe that the line 
of trees which marks its current divides the valley into 
two pretty equal parts, and the river runs nearly east 
and west. .... At last, when it was growing dark, we 
went down, groping our way over the shaky staircases, 
and peeping into each dark chamber as we passed. I 

gratified J exceedingly by hitting my nose against 

the wall. Reaching the bottom, I went into the great 
saloon, and stood at a window watching the lights twinkle 
forth, near and far, in the valley, and listening to the con- 
vent bells that sounded from Monte Olivetto, and more 
remotely still. The stars came out, and the constellation 
of the Dipper hung exactly over the Val d' Arno, pointing 
to the North Star above the hills on my right. 

August I2tk. — We drove into town yesterday after- 
noon, with Miss Blagden, to call on Mr. Kirkup, an old 
Englishman who has resided a great many years in Flor- 
ence. He is noted as an antiquarian, and has the repu- 
tation of being a necromancer, not undeservedly, as he 
is deeply interested in spirit-rappings, and holds converse, 
through a medium, with dead poets and emperors. He 
lives in an old house, formerly a residence of the Knighti 



1858.] ITALY. 101 

Templars, banging over the Arno, just as you pome upon 
the Ponte Vecchio ; and, going up a dark staircase and 
knocking at a door on one side of the landing-place, we 
were received by Mr. Kirkup. He had had notice of 
our visit, and was prepared for it, being dressed in a 
blue frock-coat of rather an old fashion, with a velvet 
collar, and in a thin waistcoat and pantaloons fresh from 
the drawer ; looking very sprucely, in short, and unlike 
his customary guise, for Miss Blagden hinted to us that 
the poor gentleman is generally so untidy that it is not 
quite pleasant to take him by the hand. He is rather 
low of stature, with a pale, shrivelled face, and hair and 
beard perfectly white, and the hair of a particularly soft 
an£ silken texture. He has a high, thin nose, of the 
English aristocratic type; his eyes have a queer, rather 
wild look, and the eyebrows are arched above them, so 
that he seems all the time to be seeing something that 
strikes him with surprise. I judged him to be a little 
crack-brained, chiefly on the strength of this expression. 
His whole make is delicate, his hands white and small, 
and his appearance and manners those of a gentleman, 
with rather more embroidery of courtesy than belongs to 
an Englishman. He appeared to be very nervous, trem- 
ulous, indeed, to his fingers' ends, without being in any 
degree disturbed or embarrassed by our presence. Fi- 
nally, he is very deaf; an infirmity that quite took away 
my pleasure in the interview, because it is impossible to 
say anything worth while when one is compelled to raise 
one's voice above its ordinary level. 

He ushered us through two or three large rooms, dark, 
dusty, hung with antique-looking pictures, and lined 
with bookcases containing, I doubt not, a very curious 
library. Indeed, he directed my attention to one case, 
and said that he had collected those works, in former 



102 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

days, merely for the sake of laughing at them. They 
were books of magic and occult sciences. What he 
seemed really to value, however, were some manuscript 
copies of Dante, of which he showed us two : one, a folio 
on parchment, beautifully written in German text, the 
letters as clear and accurately cut as printed type ; the 
other a small volume, fit, as Mr. Kirkup said, to be car- 
ried in a capacious mediae val sleeve. This also was on 
vellum, and as elegautly executed as the larger one ; but 
the larger had beautiful illuminations, the vermilion and 
gold of which looked as brilliant now as they did five 
centuries ago. Both of these books were written early in 
the fourteenth century. Mr. Kirkup has also a plaster 
cast of Dante's face, which he believes to be the original 
one taken from his face after death ; and he has likewise 
his own accurate tracing from Giotto's fresco of Dante 
in the chapel of the Bargello. This fresco was discov- 
ered through Mr. Kirkup' s means, and the tracing is par- 
ticularly valuable, because the original has been almost 
destroyed by rough usage in drawing out a nail that had 
been driven into the eye. It represents the profile of 
a youthful but melancholy face, and has the general out- 
line of Dante's features in other portraits. 

Dante has held frequent communications with Mr. 
Kirkup through a medium, the poet being described by 
the medium as wearing the same dress seen in the youth- 
ful portrait, but as bearing more resemblauce to the cast 
taken from his dead face than to the picture from his 
youthful one. 

There was a very good picture of Savonarola in one 
of the rooms, and many other portraits, paintings, and 
drawings, some of them ancient, and others the work of 
Mr. Kirkup himself. He has the torn fragment of an 
exquisite drawing of a nude figure by Rubens, and a 



J 858.] ITALY. 103 

portfolio of other curious drawings. And besides books 
aud works of art, he has no end of antique knickknack- 
eries, none of which we had any time to look at ; among 
others some instruments with which nuns used to torture 
themselves in their convents by way of penance. But 
the greatest curiosity of all, and no antiquity, was a pale, 
large-eyed little girl, about four years old, who followed 
the conjurer's footsteps wherever he went. She was the 
brightest and merriest little thing in the world, and 
disked through those shadowy old chambers, among the 
de&d people's trumpery, as gayly as a butterfly flits 
among flowers and sunshine. 

Tiie child's mother was a beautiful girl named Regina, 
whose portrait Mr. Kirkup showed us on the wall. I 
never saw a more beautiful and striking face claiming to 
be a real one. She was a Florentine, of low birth, and 
she lived with the old necromancer as his spiritual 
medium. He showed us a journal, kept during her life- 
time, and read from it his notes of an interview with the 
Czar Alexander, when that potentate communicated to 
Mr. Kirkup that he had been poisoned. The necroman- 
cer set a great value upon Regina, .... and when she 
died he received her poor baby into his heart, and now 
considers it absolutely his own. At any rate, it is a 
happy belief for him, since he has nothing else in the 
world to love, and loves the child entirely, and enjoys all 
the bliss of fatherhood, though he must have lived as 
much as seventy years before he began to taste it. 

The child inherits her mother's gift of communication 
with the spiiitual world, so that the conjurer can still 
talk with Regina through the baby which she left, and 
not only with her, but with Dante, and any other great 
spirit that may choose to visit him. It is a very strange 
story, and this child might be put at once into a romance, 



104 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

with all her history and environment ; the ancient Knight 
Templar palace, with the Arno flowing under the iron- 
barred windows, and the Ponte Yecchio, covered with its 
jewellers' shops, close at hand ; the dark, lofty chambers 
with faded frescos on the ceilings, black pictures hanging 
on the walls, old books on the shelves, and hundreds of 
musty antiquities, emitting an odor of past centuries ; 
the shrivelled, white-bearded old man, thinking all the 
time of ghosts, and looking into the child's eyes to seek 
them ; and the child herself, springing so freshly out of 
the soil, so pretty, so intelligent, so playful, with never a 
playmate save the conjurer and a kitten. It is a Persian 
kitten, and lay asleep in a window ; but when I touched 
it, it started up at once in as gamesome a mood as the 
child herself. 

The child looks pale, and no wonder, seldom or never 
stirring out of that old palace, or away from the river 
atmosphere. Miss Blagden advised Mr. Kirkup to go 
with her to the seaside or into the country, and he did 
not deny that it might do her good, but seemed to be 
hampered by an old man's sluggishness and dislike of 
change. I think he will not live a great while, for he 
seems very frail. When he dies the little girl will inherit 
what property he may leave. A lady, Catharine Flem- 
ing, an Englishwoman, and a friend of Mr. Kirkup, has 
engaged to take her in charge. She followed us merrily 
to the door, and so did the Persian kitten, and Mr. 
Kirkup shook hands with us, over and over again, with 
vivacious courtesy, his manner having been characterized 
by a great deal of briskness throughout the interview. He 
expressed himself delighted to have met me (whose books 
he had read), and said that the day would be a memora- 
ble one to him, — which I did not in the least believe. 

Mr. Kirkup is an intimate friend of Trelawny, author 



1858.]. ITALY. 105 

of "Adventures of a Younger Son," and, long ago, the 
latter promised him that, if he ever came into possession 
of the family estate, he would divide it with him. Tre- 
lawny did really succeed to the estate, and lost no time 
in forwarding to his friend the legal documents, entitling 
him to half of the property. But Mr. Kirkup declined 
the gift, as he himself was not destitute, and Trelawny 
had a brother. There were two pictures of Trelawny in 
the saloons, one a slight sketch on the wall, the other a 
half-length portrait in a Turkish dress ; both handsome, 
but indicating no very amiable character. It is not easy 
to forgive Trelawny for uncovering dead Byron's limbs, 
and telling that terrible story about them, — equally dis- 
graceful to himself, be it truth or a lie. 

It seems that Regina had a lover, and a sister who 
was very disreputable It rather adds than other- 
wise to the romance of the affair, — the idea that this 
pretty little elf has no right whatever to the asylum 
which she has found. Her name is Imogen. 

The small manuscript copy of Dante which he showed 
me was written by a Florentine gentleman of the four- 
teenth century, one of whose ancestors the poet had met 
and talked with in Paradise. 



19th. — Here is a good Italian incident, which 
I find in Yalery. Andrea del Castagno was a painter in 
Florence in the fifteenth century ; and he had a friend, 
likewise a painter, Domenico of Yenice. The latter 
had the secret of painting in oils, and yielded to Castag- 
no' s entreaties to impart it to him. Desirous of being 
the sole possessor of this great secret, Castagno waited 
only the night to assassinate Domenico, who so little 
suspected his treachery, that he besought those who 
found him bleeding and dying to take him to his friend 
5* 



103 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

Castagno, that lie might die in his arms. The murderer 
lived to be seventy-four years old, and his crime was never 
suspected till he himself revealed it on his death-bed. 
Domenico did actually die in Castagno's arms. The death 
scene would have been a good one for the latter to paint 
in oils. 

September 1st. — Few things journalizable have hap- 
pened during the last month, because Florence and the 
neighborhood have lost their novelty ; and furthermore, I 
usually spend the whole day at home, having been engaged 
in planning and sketching out a romance. I have now 
done with this for the present, and mean to employ the 
rest of the time we stay here chiefly in revisiting the gal- 
leries, and seeing what remains to be seen in Florence. 

Last Saturday, August 28th, we went to take tea at 
Miss Blagden's, who has a weekly reception on that even- 
ing. We found Mr. Powers there, and by and by Mr. 

Boott and Mr. Trollope came in. Miss has lately 

been exercising her faculties as a spiritual writing-medium ; 
and, the conversation turning on that subject, Mr. Pow- 
ers related some things that he had witnessed through 
the agency of Mr. Home, who had held a session or two 
at his house. He described the apparition of two mys- 
terious hands from beneath a table round which the party 
were seated. These hands purported to belong to the 
aunt of the Countess Cotterel, who was present, and 
were a pair of thin, delicate, aged, lady-like hands and 
arms, appearing at the edge of the table, and terminating 
at the elbow in a sort of white mist. One of the hands 
took up a fan and began to use it. The countess then 
said, " Fan yourself as you used to do, dear aunt " ; and 
forthwith the hands waved the fan back and forth in a 
peculiar manner, which the countess recognized as the 



1858.] ITALY. 107 

manner of her dead aunt. The spirit was then requested 
to fan each member of the party ; and accordingly, each 
separate individual round the table was fanned in turn, 
and felt the breeze sensibly upon his face. Finally, the 
hands sank beneath the table, I believe Mr. Powers said ; 
but I am not quite sure that they did not melt into the 
air. During this apparition, Mr. Home sat at the table, 
but not in such a position or within such distance that he 
could have put out or managed the spectral hands ; and 
of this Mr. Powers satisfied himself by taking precisely 
the same position after the party had retired. Mr. 
Powers did not feel the hands at this time, but he af- 
terwards felt the touch of infant hands, which were at 
the time invisible. He told of many of the wonders, 
which seem to have as much right to be set down as facts 
as anything else that depends on human testimony. Por 

example, Mr. K , one of the party, gave a sudden 

start and exclamation. He had felt on his knee a certain 
token, which could have been given him only by a friend, 
long ago in his grave. Mr. Powers inquired what was 
the last thing that had been given as a present to a de- 
ceased child ; and suddenly both he and his wife felt a 
prick as of some sharp instrument, on their knees. The 
present had been a penknife. I have forgotten other in- 
cidents quite as striking as these ; but, with the excep- 
tion of the spirit-hands, they seemed to be akin to those 
that have been produced by mesmerism, returning the 
inquirer's thoughts and veiled recollections to himself, 
as answers to his queries. The hands are certainly an 
inexplicable phenomenon. Of course, they are not por- 
tions of a dead body, nor any other kind of substance ; 
they are impressions on the two senses, sight and touch, 
but how produced I cannot tell. Even admitting their 
appearance, — and certainly I do admit it as freely and 



108 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

fully as if I had seen them myself, — there is no need 
of supposing them to come from the world of departed 
spirits. 

Powers seems to put entire faith in the verity of spirit- 
ual communications, while acknowledging the difficulty 
of identifying spirits as being what they pretend to be. 
He is a Swedenborgian, and so far prepared to put faith 
in many of these phenomena. As for Home, Powers 
gives a decided opinion that he is a knave, but thinks 
him so organized, nevertheless, as to be a particularly 
good medium for spiritual communications. Spirits, I 
suppose, like earthly people, are obliged to use such in- 
struments as will answer their purposes; but rather 
than receive a message from a dead friend through the 
organism of a rogue or charlatan, methinks I would 
choose to wait till we meet. But what most astonishes 
me is the indifference with which I listen to these mar- 
vels. They throw old ghost-stories quite into the shade ; 
they bring the whole world of spirits down amongst us, 
visibly and audibly ; they are absolutely proved to be sober 
facts by evidence that would satisfy us of any other al- 
leged realities ; and yet I cannot force my mind to in- 
terest myself in them. They are facts to my understand- 
ing, which, it might have been anticipated, would have 
been the last to acknowledge them ; but they seem not 
to be facts to my intuitions and deeper perceptions. 
My inner soul does not in the least admit them ; there 
is a mistake somewhere. So idle and empty do I feel 
these stories to be, that I hesitated long whether or no 
to give up a few pages of this not very important jour- 
nal to the record of them. 

We have had written communications through Miss 

with several spirits ; my wife's father, mother, two 

brothers, and a sister, who died long ago, in infancy ; a 



1858.] ITALY. 109 

certain Mary Hall, who announces herself as the guar- 
dian spirit of Miss ; and, queerest of all, a Mary 

Runnel, who seems to be a wandering spirit, having 
relations with nobody, but thrusts her finger into every- 
body's affairs. My wife's mother is the principal com- 
municant ; she expresses strong affection, and rejoices 
at the opportunity of conversing with her daughter. 
She often says very pretty things ; for instance, in a 
dissertation upon heavenly music ; but there is a lack of 
substance in her talk, a want of gripe, a delusive show, 
a sentimental surface, with no bottom beneath it. The 
same sort of thing has struck me in all the poetry and 
prose that I have read from spiritual sources. I should 
judge that these effusions emanated from earthly minds, 
but had undergone some process that had deprived them 
of solidity and warmth. In the communications between 
my wife and her mother, I cannot help thinking that 

(Miss being unconsciously in a mesmeric state) all 

the responses are conveyed to her fingers from my wife's 

mind 

We have tried the spirits by various test questions, 
on every one of which they have failed egregiously. 
Here, however, the aforesaid Mary Runnel comes into 
play. The other spirits have told us that the veracity 
of this spirit is not to be depended upon ; and so, when- 
ever it is possible, poor Mary Runnel is thrust forward 
to bear the odium of every mistake or falsehood. They 
have avowed themselves responsible for all statements 
signed by themselves, and have thereby brought them- 
selves into more than one inextricable dilemma ; but it is 
very funny, where a response or a matter of fact has not 
been thus certified, how invariably Mary Runnel is made 
to assume the discredit of it, on its turning out to be false. 
It is the most ingenious arrangement that could possibly 



110 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

have been contrived ; and somehow or other, the pranks 
of this lying spirit give a reality to the conversations 
which the more respectable ghosts qnite fail in imparting. 

The whole matter seems to me a sort of dreaming 
awake. It resembles a dream, in that the whole mate- 
rial is, from the first, in the dreamer's mind, though con- 
cealed at various depths below the surface ; the dead 
appear alive, as they always do in dreams ; unexpected 
combinations occur, as continually in dreams ; the mind 
speaks through the various persons of the drama, and 
sometimes astonishes itself with its own wit, wisdom, 
and eloquence, as often in dreams ; but, in both cases, 
the intellectual manifestations are really of a very flimsy 
texture. Mary Runnel is the only personage who does 
not come evidently from dream-land ; and she, I think, 
represents that lurking scepticism, that sense of un- 
reality, of which we are often conscious, amid the most 
vivid phantasmagoria of a dream. I should be glad to 
believe in the genuineness of these spirits, if I could ; 
but the above is the conclusion to which my soberest 
thoughts tend. There remains, of course, a great deal 
for which I cannot account, and I cannot sufficiently 
wonder at the pigheadedness both of metaphysicians 
and physiologists, in not accepting the phenomena, so 
far as to make them the subject of investigation. 

In writing the communications, Miss holds the 

pencil rather loosely between her fingers; it moves 
rapidly, and with equal facility whether she fixes her 
eyes on the paper or not. The handwriting has far 
more freedom than her own. At the conclusion of a 
sentence, the pencil lays itself down. She sometimes 
has a perception of each word before it is written ; at 
other times, she is quite unconscious what is to come 
next. Her integrity is absolutely indubitable, and she 



1858.] ITALY. Ill 

herself totally disbelieves in the spiritual authenticity of 
what is communicated through her medium. 

September 3d. — We walked into Florence yesterday, 
betimes after breakfast, it being comfortably cool, and a 
gray, English sky; though, indeed, the clouds had a 
tendency to mass themselves more than they do on an 
overcast English day. We found it warmer in Florence, 
but not inconveniently so, even in the sunniest streets 
and squares. 

We went to the Uffizi gallery, the whole of which 
with its contents is now familiar to us, except the 
room containing drawings; and our to-day's visit was 
especially to them. The door giving admittance to 
them is the very last in the gallery ; and the rooms, 
three in number, are, I should judge, over the Loggia 
de' Lanzi, looking on the Grand Ducal Piazza. The 
drawings hang on the walls, framed and glazed; and 
number, perhaps, from one to two hundred in each 
room ; but this is only a small portion of the collection, 
which amounts, it is said, to twenty thousand, and is 
reposited in portfolios. The sketches on the walls are 
changed, from time to time, so as to exhibit all the 
most interesting ones in turn. Their whole charm is 
artistic, imaginative, and intellectual, and in no degree 
of the upholstery kind ; their outward presentment being, 
in general, a design hastily shadowed out, by means of 
colored crayons, on tinted paper, or perhaps scratched 
rudely in pen and ink ; or drawn in pencil or charcoal, 
and half rubbed out ; very rough things, indeed, in many 
instances, and the more interesting on that account, be- 
cause it seems as if the artist had bestirred himself to 
catch the first glimpse of an image that did but reveal 
itself and vanish. The sheets, or sometimes scraps of 



112 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

paper, on which they are drawn, are discolored with 
age, creased, soiled ; but yet you are magnetized by 
the hand of Raphael, Michael Angelo, Leonardo, or who- 
ever may have jotted down those rough-looking master- 
touches. They certainly possess a charm that is lost in 
the finished picture ; and I was more sensible of fore- 
casting thought, skill, and prophetic design, in these 
sketches than in the most consummate works that have 
been elaborated from them. There is something more 
divine in these ; for I suppose the first idea of a picture 
is real inspiration, and all the subsequent elaboration of 
the master serves but to cover up the celestial germ 
with something that belongs to himself. At any rate, 
the first sketch is the more suggestive, and sets the 
spectator's imagination at work ; whereas the picture, . 
if a good one, leaves him nothing to do ; if bad, it con- 
fuses, stupefies, disenchants, and disheartens him. First 
thoughts have an aroma and fragrance in them, that 
they do not lose in three hundred years ; for so old, and 
a good deal more, are some of these sketches. 

None interested me more than some drawings, on 
separate pieces of paper, by Perugino, for his picture of 
the mother and friends of Jesus round his dead body, 
now at the Pitti Palace. The attendant figures are dis- 
tinctly made out, as if the Virgin, and John, and Mary 
Magdalen had each favored the painter with a sitting ; 
but the body of Jesus lies in the midst, dimly hinted 
with a few pencil-marks. 

There were several designs by Michael Angelo, none 
of which made much impression on me ; the most strik- 
ing was a very ugly demon, afterwards painted in the 
Sistine Chapel. Raphael shows several sketches of 
Madonnas, — one of which has flowered into the Grand 
Duke's especial Madonua at the Pitti Palace, but with a 



1858.] ITALY. 113 

different face. His sketches were mostly very rough in 
execution ; but there were two or three designs for 
frescos, I think, in the Vatican, very carefully executed ; 
perhaps because these works were mainly to be done by 
other hands than his own. It seems to me that the 
Pre-Raphaelite artists made more careful drawings than 
the later ones ; and it rather surprised me to see how 
much science they possessed. 

We looked at few other things in the gallery ; and, 
indeed, it was not one of the days when works of art find 
me impressible. We stopped a little while in the Trib- 
une, but the Venus de' Medici seemed to me to-day 
little more than any other piece of yellowish white marble. 
How strange that a goddess should stand before us abso- 
lutely unrecognized, even when we know by previous 
revelations that she is nothing short of divine ! It is also 
strange that, unless when one feels the ideal charm of a 
statue, it becomes one of the most tedious and irksome 
things in the world. Either it must be a celestial thing 
or an old lump of stone, dusty and time-soiled, and tiring 
out your patience with eternally looking just the same. 
Once in & while you penetrate through the crust of the 
old sameness, and see the statue forever new and immor- 
tally young. 

Leaving the gallery we walked towards the Duomo, 
and on our way stopped to look at the beautiful Gothic 
niches hollowed into the exterior walls of the Church of 
San Michele. They are now in the process of being 
cleaned, and each niche is elaborately inlaid with precious 
marbles, and some of them magnificently gilded; and 
they are all surmounted with marble canopies as light 
and graceful as frost-work. Within stand statues, St. 
George, and many other saints, by Donatello and others, 
and all taking a bold upon one's sympatliies, even if they 



114 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858, 

be not beautiful. Classic statues escape you with their 
slippery beauty, as if they were made of ice. Hough and 
ugly things can be clutched. This is nonsense, and yet 

it n>eans something The streets were thronged 

and vociferative with more life and outcry than usual. It 
must have been market-day in Florence, for the commerce 
of the streets was in great vigor, narrow tables being set 
out in them, and in the squares, burdened with all kinds 
of small merchandise, such as cheap jewelry, glistening as 
brightly as what we had just seen in the gem-room of the 
Uffizi ; crockery ware ; toys, books, Italian and French ; 
silks ; slippers ; old iron ; all advertised by the dealers 
with terribly loud and high voices, that reverberated 
harshly from side to side of the narrow streets. Italian 
street-cries go through the head ; not that they are so 
very sharp, but exceedingly hard, like a blunt iron bar. 

We stood at the base of the Campanile, and looked at 
the bas-reliefs which wreathe it round ; and, above them, 
a row of statues; and from bottom to top a marvellous 
minuteness of inlaid marbles, filling up the vast and beauti- 
ful design of this heaven-aspiring tower. Looking upward 
to' its lofty summit, — where angels might alight, lapsing 
downward from heaven, and gaze curiously at the bustle 
of men below, — I could not but feel that there is a 
moral charm in this faithful minuteness of Gothic archi- 
tecture, filling up its outline with a million of beauties 
that perhaps may never be studied out by a single spec- 
tator. It is the very process of nature, and no doubt 
produces an effect that we know not of. Classic architec- 
ture is nothing but an outline, and affords no little points, 
no interstices where human feelings may cling and over- 
grow it like ivy. The charm, as I said, seems to be 
moral rather than intellectual; for in the gem-room of 
the Uffizi you may see fifty designs, elaborated on a 



1858.] ITALY. 115 

small scale, that have just as much merit as the design of 
the Campanile. If it were only five inches long, it might 
be a case for some article of toilet ; being two hundred 
feet high, its prettiness develops into grandeur as well as 
beauty, and it becomes really one of the wonders of the 
world. The design of the Pantheon, on the contrary, 
would retain its sublimity on whatever scale it might be 
represented. 

Returning homewards, we crossed the Ponte Vecchio, 
aud went to the Museum of Natural History, where we 
gamed admittance into the rooms dedicated to Galileo. 
They consist of a vestibule, a saloon, and a semicircular 
tribune, covered with a frescoed dome, beneath which 
stands a colossal statue of Galileo, long-bearded, and 
clad in a student's gown, or some voluminous garb of 
that kind. Around the tribune, beside and behind the 
statue, are six niches, — in one of which is preserved 
a forefinger of Galileo, fixed on a little gilt pedestal, and 
pointing upward, under a glass cover. It is very much 
shrivelled and mummy-like, of the color of parchment, 
and is little more than a finger-bone, with the dry skin 
or flesh flaking away from it ; on the whole, not a very 
delightful relic ; but Galileo used to point heavenward 
with this finger, and I hope has gone whither he pointed. 

Another niche contains two telescopes, wherewith he 
made some of his discoveries ; they are perhaps a yard 
long, and of very small calibre. Other astronomical in- 
struments are displayed in the glass cases that line the 
rooms ; but I did not understand their use any better 
than the monks, who wished to burn Galileo for his het- 
erodoxy about the planetary system 

After dinner I climbed the tower Florence lay 

in the sunshine, level, compact, and small of compass. 
Above the tiled roofs rose the tower of the Palazzo Vec- 



116 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

chio, the loftiest and the. most picturesque, though built, 
I suppose, with no idea of making it so. But it attains, 
in a singular degree, the end of causing the imagination 
to fly upward and alight on its airy battlements. Near 
it I beheld the square mass of Or San Michele, and far- 
ther to the left the bulky Duomo and the Campanile close 
beside it, like a slender bride or daughter ; the dome of 
San Lorenzo too. The Arno is nowhere visible. Be- 
yond, and on all sides of the city, the hills pile them- 
selves lazily upward in ridges, here and there developing 
into a peak ; towards their bases white villas were strewn 
numerously, but the upper region was lonely and bare. 

As we passed under the arch of the Porta Romana 
this morning, on our way into the city, we saw a queer 
object. It was what we at- first took for a living man, 
in a garb of light reddish or yellowish red color, of an- 
tique or priestly fashion, and with a cowl falling behind. 
His face was of the same hue, and seemed to have been 
powdered, as the faces of maskers sometimes are. He 
sat in a cart, which he seemed to be driving into the 
city with a load of earthen jars and pipkins, the color of 
which was precisely like his own. On closer inspection, 
this priestly figure proved to be likewise an image of 
earthenware, but his lifelikeness had a very strange and 
rather ghastly effect. Adam, perhaps, was made of 
just such red earth, and had the complexion of this 
figure. 

September 7th. — I walked into town yesterday morn- 
ing, by way of the Porta San Frediano. The gate of a 
city might be a good locality for a chapter in a novel, or 
for a little sketch by itself, whether by painter or writer. 
The great arch of the gateway, piercing through the depth 
and height of the massive masonry beneath the battle- 



1858.] ITALY. 117 

mented summit ; the shadow brooding below, in the im- 
mense thickness of the wall and beyond it, the vista of 
the street, sunny and swarming with life ; outside of the 
gate, a throng of carts, laden with fruits, vegetables, 
small fiat barrels of wine, waiting to be examined by the 
custom-house officers ; carriages too, and foot-passengers 
entering, and others swarming outward. Under the 
shadowy arch are the offices of the police and customs, 
and probably the guard-room of the soldiers, all hol- 
lowed out in the mass of the gateway. Civil officers loll 
on chairs in the shade, perhaps with an awning over 
their heads. Where the sun falls aslantwise under the 
arch a sentinel, with musket and bayonet, paces to and 
fro in the entrance, and other soldiers lounge close by. 
The life of the city seems to be compressed and made 
more intense by this barrier; and on passing within it 
you do not breathe quite so freely, yet are sensible of an 
enjoyment in the close elbowing throng, the clamor of 
high voices from side to side of the street, and the mil- 
lion of petty sights, actions, traffics, and personalities, all 
so squeezed together as to become a great whole. 

The street by which I entered led me to the Carraja 
Bridge; crossing which, I kept straight onward till I 
came to the Church of Santa Maria Novella. Doubtless, 
it looks just the same as when Boccaccio's party stood 
in a cluster on its broad steps arranging their excursion 
to the villa. Thence I went to the Church of St. Lo- 
renzo, which I entered by the side door, and found the 
organ sounding and a religious ceremony going forward. 
It is a church of sombre aspect, with its gray walls and 
pillars, but was decked out for some festivity with hang- 
ings of scarlet damask and gold. I sat awhile to rest 
myself, and then pursued my way to the Duomo. I en- 
tered, and looked at Sir John Hawkwood's painted effigy, 



118 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

and at several busts and statues, and at the windows of 
the chapel surrounding the dome, through which the 
sunshine glowed, white in the outer air, but a hundred- 
hued splendor within. I tried to bring up the scene of 
Lorenzo de' Medici's attempted assassination, but with 
no great success ; and after listening a little while to 
the chanting of the priests and acolytes, I went to the 
Bank. It is in a palace of which Raphael was the 
architect, in the Piazza Gran Duca. 

I next went, as a matter of course, to the Uffizi gal- 
lery, and, in the first place, to the Tribune, where the 
Venus de' Medici deigned to reveal herself rather more 

satisfactorily than at my last visit I looked into 

all the rooms, bronzes, drawings, and gem-room ; a vol- 
ume might easily be written upon either subject. The 
contents of the gem-room especially require to be looked 
at separately in order to convince one's self of their 
minute magnificences ; for, among so many, the eye 
slips from one to another with only a vague outward 
sense that here are whole shelves full of little miracles, 
both of nature's material and man's workmanship. 
Greater [larger] things can be reasonably well appre- 
ciated with a less scrupulous though broader attention ; 
but in order to estimate the brilliancy of the diamond 
eyes of a little agate bust, for instance, you have to 
screw your mind down to them and nothing else. You 
must sharpen your faculties of observation to a point, 
and touch the object exactly on the right spot, or you 
do not appreciate it at all. It is a troublesome process 
when there are a thousand such objects to be seen. 

I stood at an open window in the transverse corridor, 
and looked down upon the Arno, and across at the range 
of edifices that impend over it on the opposite side. The 
river, I should judge, may be a hundred or a hundred 



1858,] ITALY. 119 

and fifty yards wide in its course between the Ponte alle 
Grazie and the Ponte Veechio; that is, the width be- 
tween strand and strand is at least so much. The river, 
however, leaves a broad margin of mud and gravel on 
its right bank, on which water-weeds grow pretty abun- 
dantly, and -creep even into the stream. On my first 
arrival in Florence I thought the goose-pond green of 
the water rather agreeable than otherwise ; but its hue 
is now that of unadulterated mud, as yellow as the Tiber 
itself, yet not impressing me as being enriched with city 
sewerage like that other famous river. From the Ponte 
alle Grazie downward, half-way towards the Ponte Vee- 
chio, there is an island of gravel, and the channel on 
each side is so shallow as to allow the passage of men 
and horses wading not overleg. I have seen fishermen 
wading the main channel from side to side, their feet 
sinking into the dark mud, and thus discoloring the 
yellow water with a black track visible, step by step, 
through its shallowness. But still the Arno is a moun- 
tain stream, and liable to be tetchy and turbulent like 
all its kindred, and no doubt it often finds its borders 
of hewn stone not too far apart for its convenience. 

Along the right shore, beneath the Ufiizi and the 
adjacent buildings, there is a broad paved way, with a 
parapet; on the opposite shore the edifices are built 
directly upon the river's edge, and impend over the 
water, supported upon arches and machicolations, as I 
think that peculiar arrangement of buttressing arcades 
is called. The houses are picturesquely various in height, 
from two or three stories to seven ; picturesque in hue 
likewise, — pea-green, yellow, white, and of aged discol- 
oration, — but all with green blinds ; picturesque also 
in the courts and galleries that look upon the river, and 
in the wide arches that open beneath, intended perhaps 



120 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

to afford a haven for the household boat. Nets were 
suspended before oue or two of the houses, as if the 
inhabitants were in the habit of fishing out of window. 
As a general effect, the houses, though often palatial in 
size and height, have a shabby, neglected aspect, and are 
jumbled too closely together. Behind their range the 
city swells upward in a hillside, which rises to a great 
height above, forming, I believe, a part of the Boboli 
Gardens. 

I returned homewards over the Ponte Yecchio, which 
is a continuous street of ancient houses, except over the 
central arch, so that a stranger might easily cross the 
river without knowing it. In these small, old houses 
there is a community of goldsmiths, who set out their 
glass cases, "and hang their windows with rings, bracelets, 
necklaces, strings of pearl, ornaments of malachite and 
coral, and especially with Florentine mosaics; watches, 
too, and snuff-boxes of old fashion or new ; offerings for 
shrines also, such as silver hearts pierced with swords ; 
an infinity of pretty things, the manufacture of which is 
continually going on in the little back-room of each little 
shop. This gewgaw business has been established on the 
Ponte Vecchio for centuries, although, long since, it was 
an art of far higher pretensions than now. Benvenuto 
Cellini had his workshop here, probably in one of these 
selfsame little nooks. It would have been a ticklish affair 
to be Benvenuto' s fellow- workman within such narrow 
limits. 

Going out of the Porta Romana, I walked for some 
distance along the city wall, and then, turning to the left, 
toiled up the hill of Bellosguardo, through narrow zigzag 
lanes between high walls of stone or plastered brick, 
where the sun had the fairest chance to frizzle me. There 
were scattered villas and houses, here and there concen- 



1858.] ITALY. 121 

trating into a little bit of a street, paved with flag-stones 
from side to side, as in the city, and shadowed quite 
across its narrowness by the height of the houses. Most- 
ly, however, the way was inhospitably sunny, and shut 
out by the high wall from every glimpse of a view, except 
in one spot, where Florence spread itself before my eyes, 
with every tower, dome, and spire which it contains. A 
little way farther on my own gray tower rose before me, 
the most welcome object that I had seen in the course of 
the day. 

September 10M. — I went into town again yesterday, 
by way of the Porta San Frediano, and observed that this 
gate (like the other gates of Florence, as far as I have 
observed) is a tall, square structure of stone or brick, or 
both, rising high above the adjacent wall, and having a 
range of open loggie in the upper story. The arch ex- 
ternally is about half the height of the structure. Inside, 
towards the town, it rises nearly to the roof. On each 
side of the arch there is much room for offices, apart- 
ments, storehouses, or whatever else. On the outside of 
the gate, along the base, are those iron rings and sockets 
for torches, which are said to be the distinguishing sym- 
bol of illustrious houses. As contrasted with the vista of 
the narrow, swarming street through the arch from with- 
out, the view from the inside might be presented with a 
glimpse of the free blue sky. 

I strolled a little about Florence, and went into two or 
three churches ; into that of the Annunziata for one. I 
have already described this church, with its general mag- 
nificence, and it was more magnificent than ever to-day, 
being hung with scarlet silk and gold-embroidery. A 
great many people were at their devotions, thronging 
principally around the Virgin's shrine. I was struck 

^OL. II. 6 



122 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

now with the many bas-reliefs and busts in the costume 
of their respective ages, and seemingly with great accu- 
racy of portraiture, in the passage leading from the front 
of the church into the cloisters. The marble was not at 
all abashed nor degraded by being made to assume the 
guise of the mediaeval furred robe, or the close-fitting 
tunic with elaborate ruff, or the breastplate and gorget, 
or the flowing wig, or whatever the actual costume might 
be ; and one is sensible of a rectitude and reality in the 
affair, and respects the dead people for not putting them- 
selves into an eternal masquerade. The dress of the 
present day will look equally respectable in one or two 
hundred years. 

The Fair is still going on, and one of its principal cen- 
tres is before this church, in the Piazza of the Annun- 
ziata. Cloth is the chief commodity offered for sale, and 
none of the finest ; coarse, unbleached linen and cotton 
prints for country-people's wear, together with yarn, 
stockings, and here and there an assortment of bright- 
colored ribbons. Playthings, of a very rude fashion, 
were also displayed; likewise books in Italian and 
French ; and a great deal of iron-work. Both here and 
in Rome they have this odd custom of offering rusty 
iron implements for sale, spread out on the pavements. 
There was a good deal of tinware, too, glittering in the 
sunshine, especially around the pedestal of the bronze 
statue of Duke Ferdinand, who curbs his horse and looks 
down upon the bustling piazza in a very 6tately way. 
.... The people attending the fair had mostly a rustic 
appearance ; sunburnt faces, thin frames ; no beauty, no 
bloom, no joyOusness of young or old; an anxious as- 
pect, as if life were no easy or holiday matter with them ; 
but I should take them to be of a kindly nature, and rea- 
sonably honest. Except the broad-brimmed Tuscan hats 



1858.] , ITALY. 123 

of the women, there was no peculiarity of costume. At 
a careless glance I could very well have mistaken most 
of the men for Yankees ; as for the women, there is very 
little resemblance between them and ours, — the old 
being absolutely hideous, and the young ones very seldom 
pretty. It was a very dull crowd. They do not gener- 
ate any warmth among themselves by contiguity ; they 
have no pervading sentiment, such as is continually 
breaking out in rough merriment from an American 
crowd ; they have nothing to do with one another ; they 
are not a crowd, considered as one mass, but a collection 
of individuals. A despotic government has perhaps de- 
stroyed their principle of cohesion, and crumbled them to 
atoms. Italian crowds are noted for their civility ; pos- 
sibly they deserve credit for native courtesy and gentle- 
ness ; possibly, on the other hand, the crowd has not 
spirit and self-consciousness enough to be rampant. I 
wonder whether they will ever hold another parliament 
in the Piazza of Santa Croce ! 

I paid a visit to the gallery of the Pitti Palace. There 
is too large an intermixture of Andrea del Sarto's pic- 
tures in this gallery; everywhere you see them, cold, 
proper, and uncriticisable, looking so much like first-rate 
excellence, that you inevitably quarrel with your own 
taste for not admiring them 

It was one of the days when my mind misgives me 
whether the pictorial art be not a humbug, and when 
the minute accuracy of a fly in a Dutch picture of fruit 
and flowers seems to me something more reliable than 
the master-touches of Raphael. The gallery was con- 
siderably thronged, and many of the visitors appeared to 
be from the country, and of a class intermediate between 
gentility and labor. Is there such a rural class in Italy ? 
I saw a respectable-looking man feeling awkward and 



124 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

uncomfortable in a new and glossy pair of pantaloons not 
yet bent and creased to his natural movement. 

Nothing pleased me better to-day than some amber 
cups, in one of the cabinets of curiosities. They are 
richly wrought, and the material is as if the artist had 
compressed a great deal of sunshine together, and when 
sufficiently solidified had moulded these cups out of it and 
let them harden. This simile was suggested by . 

Leaving the palace, I entered the Boboli Gardens, 
and wandered up and down a good deal of its uneven 
surface, through broad, well-kept edges of box, sprout- 
ing loftily, trimmed smoothly, and strewn between with 
cleanly gravel ; skirting along plantations of aged trees, 
throwing a deep shadow within their precincts ; passing 
many statues, not of the finest art, yet approaching so 
near it, as to serve just as good a purpose for garden or- 
nament ; coming now and then to the borders of a fish- 
pool, or a pond, where stately swans circumnavigated an 
island of flowers ; — all very fine and very wearisome. 
I have never enjoyed this garden; perhaps because it 
suggests dress-coats, and such elegant formalities. 



llt/i. — We have heard a good deal of spirit 
matters of late, especially of wonderful incidents that at- 
tended Mr. Home's visit to Florence, two or three years 
ago. Mrs. Powers told a very marvellous thing; how 
that when Mr. Home was holding a seance in her house, 
and several persons present, a great scratching was heard 
in a neighboring closet. She addressed the spirit, and 
requested it not to disturb the company then, as they 
were busy with other affairs, promising to converse with 
it on a future occasion. On a subsequent night, accord- 
ingly, the scratching was renewed, with the utmost vio- 
lence ; and in reply to Mrs. Powers's questions, the spirit 



1858.] ITALY. 125 

assured her that it was not one, but legion, being the 
ghosts of twenty-seven monks, who were miserable and 
without hope ! The house now occupied by Powers was 
formerly a convent, and I suppose these were the spirits 
of all the wicked monks that had ever inhabited it ; at 
least, I hope that there were not such a number of dam- 
nable sinners extant at any one time. These ghostly 
fathers must have been very improper persons in their 
lifetime, judging by the indecorousness of their behavior 
even after death, and in such dreadful circumstances; 
for they pulled Mrs. Powers' s skirts so hard as to break 
the gathers It was not ascertained that they de- 
sired to have anything done for their eternal welfare, or 
that their situation was capable of amendment anyhow ; 
but, being exhorted to refrain from further disturbance, 
they took their departure, after making the sign of the 
cross on the breast of each person present. This was 
very singular in such reprobates, who, by their own con- 
fession, had forfeited all claim to be benefited by that 
holy symbol : it curiously suggests that the forms of re- 
ligion may still be kept up in purgatory and hell itself. 
The sign was made in a way that conveyed the sense of 
something devilish and spiteful ; the perpendicular line of 
the cross being drawn gently enough, but the transverse 
one sharply and violently, so as to leave a painful impres- 
sion. Perhaps the monks meant this to express their con- 
tempt and hatred for heretics ; and how queer, that this 
antipathy should survive their own damnation ! But I 
cannot help hoping that the case of these poor devils 
may not be so desperate as they think. They cannot be 
wholly lost, because their desire for communication with 
mortals shows that they need sympathy, therefore are 
not altogether hardened, therefore, with loving treatment, 
may be restored. 



126 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1C38. 

A great many other wonders took place within the 

knowledge and experience of Mrs. P . She saw, not 

one pair of hands only, bnt many. The head of one of 
her dead children, a little boy, was laid in her lap, not in 
ghastly fashion, as a head out of the coffin and the grave, 
but just as the living child might have laid it on his 
mother's knees. It was invisible, by the by, and she rec- 
ognized it by the features and the character of the hair, 
through the sense of touch. Little hands grasped hers. 
In short, these soberly attested incredibilities are so nu- 
merous that I forget nine tenths of them, and judge the 
others too cheap to be written down. Christ spoke the 
truth surely, in saying that men would not believe, 
" though one rose from the dead." In my own case, the 
fact makes absolutely no impression. I regret such con- 
firmation of truth as this. 

Within a mile of our villa stands the Villa Columbaria, 
a large house, built round a square court. Like Mr. 
Powers's residence, it was formerly a convent. It is 
inhabited by Major Gregorie, an old soldier of Waterloo 
and various other fights, and his family consists of Mrs. 

, the widow of one of the Major's friends, and her 

two daughters. We have become acquainted with the 

family, and Mrs. , the married daughter, has lent us 

a written statement of her experiences with a ghost, who 
has haunted the Villa Columbaria for many years back. 

He had made Mrs. ■ aware of his presence in her 

room by a sensation of extreme cold, as if a wintry 
breeze were blowing over her ; also by a rustling of the 
bed-curtains ; and, at such times, she had a certain con- 
sciousness, as she says, that she was not alone. Through 
Mr. Home's agency, the ghost was enabled to explain 
himself, and declared that he was a monk, named Gian- 
nane, who died a very long time ago in Mrs. 's 



1858.] ITALY, 127 

present bedchamber. He was a murderer, and had been 
in a restless and miserable state ever since his death, 
wandering up and down the house, but especially haunt- 
ing his own death -chamber and a staircase that communi- 
cated with the chapel of the villa. All the interviews 
with this lost spirit were attended with a sensation of 
severe cold, which was felt by every one present. He 
made his communications by means of table-rapping, and 
by the movements of chairs and other articles, which 
often assumed an angry character. The poor old fellow 
does not seem to have known exactly what he wanted 

with Mrs. , but promised to refrain from disturbing 

her any more, on condition that she would pray that he 
might find some repose. He had previously declined 
having any masses said for his soul. Rest, rest, rest, 
appears to be the continual craving of unhappy spirits ; 
they do not venture to ask for positive bliss : perhaps, 
in their utter weariness, would rather forego the trouble 
of active enjoyment, but pray only for rest. The cold 
atmosphere around this monk suggests new ideas as to 
the climate of Hades. If all the aforementioned twenty- 
seven monks had a similar one, the combined tempera- 
ture must have been that of a polar winter. 

Mrs. saw, at one time, the fingers of her monk, 

long, yellow, and skinny; these fingers grasped the 
hands of individuals of the party, with a cold, clammy, 
and horrible touch. 

After the departure of this ghost other seances were 
held in her bedchamber, at which good and holy spirits 
manifested themselves, and behaved in a very comfortable 
and encouraging way. It was their benevolent purpose, 
apparently, to purify her apartments from all traces of 
the evil spirit, and to reconcile her to what had been so 
long the haunt of this miserable monk, by filling it with 



128 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

liappy and sacred associations, in which, as Mrs. 

intimates, they entirely succeeded. 

These stories remind me of an incident that took 
place at the old manse, in the first summer of our mar- 
riage 



Ylth. — We walked yesterday to Florence, 
and visited the church of St. Lorenzo, where we saw, 
for the second time, the famous Medici statues of Michael 
Angelo. I found myself not in a very appreciative state, 
and, being a stone myself, the statue of Lorenzo was at 
first little more to me than another stone ; but it was 
beginning to assume life, and would have impressed me 
as it did before if I had gazed long enough. There was 
a better light upon the face, under the helmet, than at 
my former visit, although still the features were enough 
overshadowed to produce that mystery on which, accord- 
ing to Mr. Powers, the effect of the statue depends. I 
observe that the costume of the figure, instead of being 
mediaeval, as I believe I have stated, is Roman ; but, be 
it what it may, the grand and simple character of the 
figure imbues the robes with its individual propriety. 
I still think it the greatest miracle ever wrought in 
marble. 

We crossed the church and entered a cloister on the 
opposite side, in quest of the Laurentian Library. As- 
cending a staircase we found an old man blowing the 
bellows of the organ, which was in full blast in the 
church ; nevertheless he found time to direct us to the 
library door. We entered a lofty vestibule, of ancient 
aspect and stately architecture, and thence were admit- 
ted into the library itself; a long and wide gallery or 
hall, lighted by a row of windows on which were painted 
the arms of the Medici. The ceiling was inlaid with 



1858.] ITALY. 129 

dark wood, in an elaborate pattern, which was exactly 
repeated in terra-cotta on the pavement beneath onr feet. 
Long desks, much like the old-fashioned ones in schools, 
were ranged on each side of the mid aisle, in a series 
from end to end, with seats for the convenience of stu- 
dents ; and on these desks were rare manuscripts, care- 
fully preserved under glass ; and books, fastened to the 
desks by iron chains, as the custom of studious antiquity 
used to be. Along the centre of the hall, between the 
two ranges of desks, were tables and chairs, at which 
two or three scholarly persons were seated, diligently 
consulting volumes in manuscript or old type. It was a 
very quiet place, imbued with a cloistered sanctity, and 
remote from all street-cries and rumble of the city, — 
odorous of old literature, — a spot where the commonest 
ideas ought not to be expressed in less than Latin. 

The librarian — or custode he ought rather to be 
termed, for he was a man not above the fee of a paul — 
now presented himself, and showed us some of the liter- 
ary curiosities ; a vellum manuscript of the Bible, with 
a splendid illumination by Ghirlandaio, covering two 
folio pages, and just as brilliant in its color as if finished 
yesterday. Other illuminated manuscripts — or at least 
separate pages of them, for the volumes were kept un- 
der glass, and not to be turned over — were shown us, 
very magnificent, but not to be compared with this of 
Ghirlandaio. Looking at such treasures I could almost 
say that we have left behind us more splendor than we 
have kept alive to our own age. We publish beautiful 
editions of books, to be sure, and thousands of people 
enjoy them; but in ancient times the expense that we 
Spread thinly over a thousand volumes was all com- 
pressed into one, and it became a great jewel of a book, 
a heavy folio, worth its weight in gold. Then, what a 
6* i 



130 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

spiritual charm it gives to a book to feel that every letter 
has been individually wrought, and the pictures glow for 
that individual page alone ! Certainly the ancient reader 
had a luxury which the modern one lacks. I was sur- 
prised, moreover, to see the clearness and accuracy of 
the chirography. Print does not surpass it in these re- 
spects. 

The custode showed us an ancient manuscript of the 
Decameron ; likewise, a volume containing the portraits 
of Petrarch and of Laura, each covering the whole of a 
vellum page, and very finely done. They are authentic 
portraits, no doubt, and Laura is depicted as a fair-haired 
beauty, with a very satisfactory amount of loveliness. 
We saw some choice old editions of books in a small 
separate room; but as these were all ranged in shut 
bookcases, and as each volume, moreover, was in a sepa- 
rate cover or modern binding, this exhibition did us very 
little good. By the by, there is a conceit struggling 
blindly in my mind about Petrarch and Laura, suggested 
by those two lifelike portraits, which have been sleeping 
cheek to cheek through all these centuries. But I can- 
not lay hold of it. 

September TLst. — Yesterday morning the Yal d' Arno 
was entirely filled with a thick fog, which extended even 
up to our windows, and concealed objects within a very 
short distance. It began to dissipate itself betimes, 
however, and was the forerunner of an unusually bright 
and warm day. We set out after breakfast and walked 
into town, where we looked at mosaic brooches. These 
are very pretty little bits of manufacture; but there 
seems to have been no infusion of fresh fancy into the 
work, and the specimens present little variety. It is the 
characteristic commodity of the place ; the central mart 



1858.] ITALY. 131 

and manufacturing locality being on the Ponte Vecchio, 
from end to end of which they are displayed in cases ; 
but there are other mosaic shops scattered about the 
town. The principal devices are roses, — pink, yellow, 
or white, — jasmines, lilies of the valley, forget-me-nots, 
orange blossoms, and others, single or in sprigs, or 
twined into wreaths ; parrots, too, and other birds of gay 
plumage, — often exquisitely done, and sometimes with 
precious materials, such as lapis lazuli, malachite, and 
still rarer gems. Bracelets, with several different, yet 
relative designs, are often very beautiful. We find, at 
different shops, a great inequality of prices for mosaics 
that seemed to be of much the same quality. 

We went to the Uffizi gallery, and found it much 
thronged with the middle and lower classes of Italians ; 
and the English, too, seemed more numerous than I have 
lately seen them. Perhaps the tourists have just arrived 
het-e, starting at the close of the London season. We 
were amused with a pair of Englishmen who went 
through the gallery ; one of them criticising the pictures 
and statues audibly, for the benefit of his companion. 
The critic I should take to be a country squire, and 
wholly untravelled; a tall, well-built, rather rough, but 
gentlemanly man enough ; his friend, a small personage, 
exquisitely neat in dress, and of artificial deportment, 
every attitude and gesture appearing to have been prac- 
tised before a glass. Being but a small pattern of a man, 
physically and intellectually, he had thought it worth 
while to finish himself off with the elaborateness of a 
Florentine mosaic ; and the result was something like a 
dancing-master, though without the exuberant embroid- 
ery of such persons. Indeed, he was a very quiet little 
man, and, though so thoroughly made up, there was 
something particularly green, fresh, and simple in him. 



132 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

Both these Englishmen were elderly, and the smaller one 
had perfectly white hair, glossy and silken. It did not 
make him in the least venerable, however, but took his 
own character of neatness and prettiness. He carried 
his well-brushed and glossy hat in his hand in such a way 
as not to ruffle its surface ; and I wish I could put into 
one word or one sentence the pettiness, the minikin- 
finical effect of this little man ; his self-consciousness so 
lifelong, that, in some sort, he forgot himself even in the 
midst of it ; his propriety, his cleanliness and unruffied- 
ness ;. his prettiness and nicety of manifestation, like a 
bird hopping daintily about. 

His companion, as I said, was of a completely different 
type; a tall, gray-haired man, with the rough English 
face, a little tinted with port wine; careless, natural 
manner, betokening a man of position in his own neigh- 
borhood; a loud voice, not vulgar, nor outraging the 
rales of society, but betraying a character incapable of 
much refinement. He talked continually in his progress 
through the gallery, and audibly enough for us to catch 
almost everything he said, at many yards' distance. His 
remarks and criticisms, addressed to his small friend, 
were so entertaining, that we strolled behind him for the 
sake of being benefited by them ; and I think he soon 
became aware of this, and addressed himself to us as 
well as to his more immediate friend. Nobody but an 
Englishman, it seems to me, has just this kind of vanity, 
— a feeling mixed up with scorn and good-nature ; self- 
complacency on his own merits, and as an Englishman ; 
pride at being in foreign parts ; contempt for everybody 
around him ; a rough kindliness towards people in gen- 
eral. I liked the man, and should be glad to know him 
better. As for his criticism, I am sorry to remember 
only one. It was upon the picture of the Nativity, by 



1858.] ITALY. 133 

Correggio, in the Tribune, where the mother is kneeling 
before the Child, and adoring it in an awful rapture, 
because she sees the eternal God in its baby face and 
figure. The Englishman was highly delighted with this 
picture, and began to gesticulate, as if dandling a baby, 
and to make a chirruping sound. It was to him merely 
a representation of a mother fondling her infant. He 
then said, " If I could have my choice of the pictures 
and statues in the Tribune, I would take this picture, 
and that one yonder " (it was a good enough Enthrone- 
ment of the Virgin by Andrea del Sarto) "and the 
Dancing Eaun, and let the rest go." A delightful man ; 
I love that wholesome coarseness of mind and heart, 
which no education nor opportunity can polish out of 
the genuine Englishman ; a coarseness without vulgarity. 
When a Yankee is coarse, he is pretty sure to be vulgar 
too. 

The two critics seemed to be considering whether it 
were practicable to go from the Uffizi to the Pitti gal- 
lery ; but " it confuses one," remarked the little man, 
" to see more than one gallery in a day." (I should 
think so, — the Pitti Palace tumbling into his small re- 
ceptacle on the top of the Uffizi.) "It does so," re- 
sponded the big man, with heavy emphasis. 

September 23d. — The vintage has been going on in 
our podere for about a week, and I saw a part of the 
process of making wine, under one of our back windows. 
It was on a very small scale, the grapes being thrown 
into a barrel, and crushed with a sort of pestle ; and as 
each estate seems to make its own wine, there are 
probably no very extensive and elaborate appliances in 
general use for the manufacture. The cider-makiug of 
New England is far more picturesque; the great heap 



134 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

of golden or rosy apples under the trees, and the cider- 
niill worked by a circumgyratory horse, and all agush 
with sweet juice. Indeed, nothing connected with the 
grape-culture and the vintage here has been picturesque, 
except the large inverted pyramids in which the clus- 
ters hang; those great bunches, white or purple, really 
satisfy my idea both as to aspect and taste. We can 
buy a large basketful for less than a paul ; and they are 
the only things that one can never devour too much 
of — and there is no enough short of a little too much 
— without subsequent repentance. It is a shame to 
turn such delicious juice into such sour wine as they 
make in Tuscany. I tasted a sip or two of a flask 
which the contadini sent us for trial, — the rich result 
of the process I had witnessed in the barrel. It took 
me altogether by surprise ; for I remembered the nec- 
tareousness of the new cider which I used to sip 
through a straw in my boyhood, and I never doubted 
that this would be as dulcet, but finer and more ethe- 
real; as much more delectable, in short, as these grapes 
are better than puckery cider apples. Positively, I never 
tasted anything so detestable, such a sour and bitter 
juice, still lukewarm with fermentation; it was a wail of 
woe, squeezed out of the wine-press of tribulation, and 
the more a man drinks of such, the sorrier he will be. 

Besides grapes, we have had figs, and I have now 
learned to be very fond of them. When they first 
began to appear, two months ago, they had scarcely 
any sweetness, and tasted very like a decaying squash : 
this was an early variety, with purple skins. There are 
many kinds of figs, the best being green-skinned, grow- 
ing yellower as they ripen ; and the riper they are, the 
more the sweetness within them intensifies, till they 
resemble dried figs in everything, except that they 



1858.] ITALY. 135 

retain the fresh fruit-flavor; rich, luscious, yet not pall- 
ing. We have had pears, too, some of them very 
tolerable ; and peaches, which look magnificently, as 
regards size and downy blush, but have seldom much 
more taste than a cucumber. A succession of fruits has 
followed us, ever since our arrival in Florence : — first, 
and for a long time, abundance of cherries ; then apri- 
cots, which lasted many weeks, till we were weary of 
them ; then plums, . pears, and finally figs, peaches, and 
grapes. Except the figs and grapes, a New England 
summer and autumn would give us better fruit than any 
we have found in Italy. 

Italy beats us, I think, in mosquitoes ; they are hor- 
ribly pungent little satanic particles. They possess 
strange intelligence, and exquisite acuteness of sight and 
smell, — prodigious audacity and courage to match it, 
insomuch that they venture on the most hazardous 
attacks, and get safe off. One of them flew into my 
mouth, the other night, and stung me far down in my 
throat ; but luckily I coughed him up in halves. They 
are bigger than American mosquitoes ; and if you crush 
them, after one of their feasts, it makes a terrific blood- 
spot. It is a sort of suicide — at least, a shedding of 
one's own blood — to kill them ; but it gratifies the old 
Adam to do it. It shocks me to feel how revengeful I 
am ; but it is impossible not to impute a certain malice 
and intellectual venom to these diabolical insects. I 
wonder whether our health, at this season of the year, 
requires that we should be kept in a state of irritation, 
and so the mosquitoes are Nature's prophetic remedy 
for some disease ; or whether we are made for the mos- 
quitoes, not they for us. It is possible, just possible, 
that the infinitesimal doses of poison which they infuse 
into us are a homoeopathic safeguard against pestilence; 



136 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BUOKS. [1858. 

but medicine never was administered in a more disa- 
greeable way. 

The moist atmosphere about the Arno, I suppose, pro- 
duces these insects, and fills the broad, ten-mile valley 
with them ; and as we are just' on the brim of the basin, 
they overflow into our windows. 

September ty&tk. — U and I walked to town yes- 
terday morning, and went to the TJnizi gallery. It is 
not a pleasant thought that we are so soon to give up 
this gallery, with little prospect (none, or hardly any, on 
my part) of ever seeing it again. It interests me and 
all of us far more than the gallery of the Pitti Palace, 
wherefore I know not, for the latter is the richer of the 
two in admirable pictures. Perhaps it is the picturesque 
variety of the Uffizi — the combination of painting, 
sculpture, gems, and bronzes — that makes the charm. 
The Tribune, too, is the richest room in all the world ; 
a heart that draws all hearts to it. The Dutch pictures, 
moreover, give a homely, human interest to the Uffizi ; 
and I really think that the frequency of Andrea del Sar- 
to's productions at the Pitti Palace — looking so very 
like masterpieces, yet lacking the soul of art and nature 
— have much to do with the weariness that comes from 
better acquaintance with the latter gallery. The splen- 
dor of the gilded and frescoed saloons is perhaps another 
bore ; but, after all, my memory will often tread there as 
long as I live. What shall we do in America ? 

Speaking of Butch pictures, I was much struck yes- 
terday, as frequently before, with a small picture by 
Teniers the elder. It seems to be a pawnbroker in the 
midst of his pledges ; old earthen jugs, flasks, a brass 
kettle, old books, and a huge pile of worn-out and 
hroken rubbish, which he is examining. These things 



1858.] ITALY. 137 

are represented with vast fidelity, yet with bold and free 
touches, unlike the minute, microscopic work of other 
Dutch masters; and a wonderful picturesqueness is 
wrought out of these humble materials, and even the 
figure and head of the pawnbroker have a strange gran- 
deur. 

We spent no very long time at the Uffizi, and after- 
wards crossed the Ponte alle Grazie, and went to the 
convent of San Miniato, which stands on a hill outside 
of the Porta San Gallo. A paved pathway, along which 
stand crosses marking stations at which pilgrims are to 
kneel and pray, goes steeply to the hill-top, where, in 
the first place, is a smaller church and convent than 
those of San Miniato. The latter are seen at a short 
distance to the right, the convent being a large, square 
battlemented mass, adjoining which is the church, show- 
ing a front of aged white marble, streaked with blacky 
and having an old stone tower behind. I have seen no 
other convent or monastery that so well corresponds 
with my idea of what such structures were. The sacred 
precincts are enclosed by a high wall, gray, ancient, and 
luxuriously ivy-grown, and lofty and strong enough for 
the rampart of a fortress. We went through the gate- 
way and entered the church, which we found in much 
disarray, and masons at work upon the pavement. The 
tribune is elevated considerably above the nave, and ac- 
cessible by marble staircases ; there are great arches 
and a chapel, with curious monuments in the Gothic 
style, and ancient carvings and mosaic works, and, in 
short, a dim, dusty, and venerable interior, well worth 

studying in detail The view of Florence from 

the church door is very fine, and seems to include every 
tower, dome, or whatever object emerges out of the 
general mass. 



13S FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 



28M. - -I went to the Pitti Palace yester- 
day, and to the Uffizi to-day, paying them probably my 
last visit, yet cherishing an unreasonable doubt whether 
I may not see them again. At all events, I have seen 
them enough for the present, even what is best of them ; 
and, at the same time, with a sad reluctance to bid them 
farewell forever, I experience an utter weariness of Ra- 
phael's old canvas, and of the time-yellowed marble of 
the Venus de' Medici. When the material embodiment 
presents itself outermost, and we perceive them only by 
the grosser sense, missing their ethereal spirit, there is 
nothing so heavily burdensome as masterpieces of paint- 
ing and sculpture. I threw my farewell glance at the 
Venus de' Medici to-day with strange insensibility. 

The nights are wonderfully beautiful now. When the 
moon was at the full, a few nights ago, its light was an 
absolute glory, such as I seem only to have dreamed of 
heretofore, and that only in my younger days. At its 
rising I have fancied that the orb of the moon has a kind 
of purple brightness, and that this tinge is communicated 
to its radiance until it has climbed high aloft and sheds 
a flood of white over hill and valley. Now that the moon 
is on the wane, there is a gentler lustre, but still bright ; 
and it makes the Val d' Arno with its surrounding hills, 
and its soft mist in the distance, as beautiful a scene as 
exists anywhere out of heaven. And the morning is 
quite as beautiful in its own way. This mist, of which 
I have so often spoken, sets it beyond the limits of actual 
sense and makes it ideal ; it is as if you were dreaming 
about the valley, — as if the valley itself were dreaming, 
and met you half-way in your own dream. If the mist 
were to be withdrawn, I believe the whole beauty of the 
valley would go with it. 

Until pretty late in the morning, we have the comet 



1858.] ITALY. 139 

streaming through the sky, and dragging its interminable 
tail among the stars. It keeps brightening from night 
to night, and I should think must blaze fiercely enough 
to cast a shadow by and by. I know not whether it be 
in the vicinity of Galileo's tower, and in the influeuce of 
his spirit, but I have hardly ever watched the stars with 
such interest as now. 



29M. — Last evening I met Mr. Powers at 
Miss Blagden's, and he talked about his treatment by 
our government in reference to an appropriation of twen- 
ty-five thousand dollars made by Congress for a statue 
by him. Its payment and the purchase of the statue 
were left at the option of the President, and he conceived 
himself wronged because the affair was never concluded. 
.... As for the President, he knows nothing of art, and 
probably acted in the matter by the advice of the director 
of public works. No doubt a sculptor gets commissions 
as everybody gets public employment and emolument of 
whatever kind from our government, not by merit or 
fitness, but by political influence skilfully applied. As 
Powers himself observed, the ruins of our Capitol are 
not likely to afford sculptures equal to those which Lord 
Elgin took from the Parthenon, if this be the system 

under which they are produced I wish our great 

Republic had the spirit to do as much, according to its 
vast means, as Florence did for sculpture and architec- 
ture when it was a republic ; but we have the meanest 
government and the shabbiest, and — if truly represented 
by it — we are the meanest and shabbiest people known 
in history. And yet the less we attempt to do for art 
the better, if our future attempts are to have no better 
result than such brazen troopers as the equestrian statue 
of General Jackson, or even such naked respectabilities 



140 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

as Greenough's Washington. There is something false 
and affected in our highest taste for art * and I suppose, 
furthermore, we are the only people who seek to decorate 
their public institutions, not by the highest taste among 
them, but by the average at best. 

There was also at Miss Blagden's, among other com- 
pany, Mr. , an artist in Florence, and a sensible 

man. I talked with him about Home, the medium, 
whom he had many opportunities of observing when the 

latter was in these parts. Mr. says that Home is 

unquestionably a knave, but that he himself is as much 
perplexed at his own preternatural performances as any 
other person ; he is startled and affrighted at the phenom- 
ena which he produces. Nevertheless, when his spiritual 
powers fall short, he does his best to eke them out with 
imposture. This moral infirmity is a part of his nature, 
and I suggested that perhaps if he were of a firmer and 
healthier moral make, if his character were sufficiently 
sound and dense to be capable of steadfast principle, he 
would not have possessed the impressibility that fits him 

for the so-called spiritual influences. Mr. says that 

Louis Napoleon is. literally one of the most skilful jug- 
glers in the world, and that probably the interest he has 
taken in Mr. Home was caused partly by a wish to 
acquire his art. 

This morning Mr. Powers invited me to go with him 
to the Grand Duke's new foundry, to see the bronze 
statue of Webster which has just been cast from his 
model. It is the second cast of the statue, the first hav- 
ing been shipped some months ago on board of a vessel 
which was lost ; and, as Powers observed, the statue now 
lies at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean somewhere in 
the vicinity of the telegraphic cable. 

We were received with much courtesy and emphasis by 



1858.J ITALY. 141 

the director of the foundry, and conducted into a large 
room walled with bare, new brick, where the statue was 
standing in front of the extinct furnace : a majestic 
Webster indeed, eight feet high, and looking even more 
colossal than that. The likeness seemed to me perfect, 
and, like a sensible man, Powers has dressed him in his 
natural costume, such as I have seen Webster have on 
while making a speech in the open air at a mass meeting 
in Concord, — dress-coat buttoned pretty closely across 
the breast, pantaloons and boots, — everything finished 
even to a seam and a stitch. Not an inch of the statue 
but is Webster ; even his coat-tails are imbued with the 
man, and this true artist has succeeded in showing him 
through the broadcloth as nature showed him. He has 
felt that a man's actual clothes are as much a part of him 
as his flesh, and I respect him for disdaining to shirk the 
difficulty by throwing the meanness of a cloak over it, 
and for recognizing the folly of masquerading our Yankee 
statesman in a Roman toga, and the indecorousness of 
presenting him as a brassy nudity. It would have been 
quite as unjustifiable to strip him to his skeleton as to 
his flesh. Webster is represented as holding in his right 
hand the written roll of the Constitution, with which he 
points to a bundle of fasces, which he keeps from falling 
by the grasp of his left, thus symbolizing him as the pre- 
server of the Union. There is an expression of quiet, 
solid, massive strength in the whole figure ; a deep, per- 
vading energy, in which any exaggeration of gesture would 
lessen and lower the effect. He looks really like a pillar 
of the state. The face is very grand, very Webster; 
stern and awful, because he is in the act of meeting a 
great crisis, and yet with the warmth of a great heart 
glowing through it. Happy is Webster to have been so 
truly and adequately sculptured ; happy the sculptor in 



142 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

such a subject, which no idealization of a demigod could 
have supplied him with. Perhaps the statue at the bot- 
tom of the sea will be cast up in some future age, when 
the present race of man is forgotten, and if so, that far 
posterity will look up to us as a grander race than we 
find ourselves to be. Neither was Webster altogether 
the man he looked. His physique helped him out, even 
when he fell somewhat short of its promise ; and if his 
eyes had not been in such deep caverns their fire would 
not have looked so bright. 

Powers made me observe how the surface of the statue 
was wrought to a sort of roughness instead of being 
smoothed, as is the practice of other artists. He said 
that this had cost him great pains, and certainly it has 
an excellent effect. The statue is to go to Boston, and I 
hope will be placed in the open air, for it is too mighty 
to be kept under any roof that now exists in Amer- 
ica 

After seeing this, the director showed us some very 
curious and exquisite specimens of castings, such as 
baskets of flowers, in which the most delicate and fragile 
blossoms, the curl of a petal, the finest veins in a leaf, 
the lightest flower-spray that ever quivered in a breeze, 
were perfectly preserved; and the basket contained an 
abundant heap of such sprays. There were likewise a 
pair of hands, taken actually from life, clasped together 
as they were, and they looked like parts of a man who 
had been changed suddenly from flesh to brass. They 
were worn and rough and unhandsome hands, and so 
very real, with all their veins and the pores of the skin, 
that it was shocking to look at them. A bronze leaf, 
cast also from the life, was as curious and more beauti- 
ful. 

Taking leave of Powers, I went hither and thither 



1858.] ITALY. 143 

about Florence, seeing for the last time things that I 
have seen many times before : the market, for instance, 
blocking up a line of narrow streets with fruitstalls, and 
obstreperous dealers crying their peaches, their green 
lemons, their figs, their delicious grapes, their mush- 
rooms, their pomegranates, their radishes, their lettuces. 
They use one vegetable here which I have not known 
so used elsewhere ; that is, very young pumpkins or 
squashes, of the size of apples, and to be cooked by boil- 
ing. They are not to my taste, but the people here like 
unripe things, — unripe fruit, unripe chickens, unripe 
lamb. This market is the noisiest and swarmiest centre 
of noisy and swarming Florence, and I always like to 
pass through it on that account. 

I went also to Santa Croce, and it seemed to me to 
present a longer vista and broader space than almost any 
other church, perhaps because the pillars between the 
nave and aisles are not so massive as to obstruct the 
view. I looked into the Duomo, too, and was pretty 
well content to leave it. Then I came homeward, and 
lost my way, and wandered far off through the white 
sunshine, and the scanty shade of the vineyard walls, and 
the olive-trees that here and there branched over them. 
At last I saw our own gray battlements at a distance, on 
one side, quite out of the direction in which I was trav- 
elling, so was compelled to the grievous mortification of 
retracing a great many of my weary footsteps. It was a 
very hot day. This evening I have been on the tower- 
top star-gazing, and looking at the comet, which waves 
along the sky like an immense feather of flame. Over 
Florence there was an illuminated atmosphere, caused by 
the lights of the city gleaming upward into the mists 
which sleep and dream above that portion of the valley, 
as well as the rest of it. I saw dimly, or fancied I saw, 



144 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

the liill of Fiesole on the other side of Florence, and 
remembered how ghostly lights were seen passing thence 
to the Duomo on the night when Lorenzo the Magnifi- 
cent died. From time to time the sweet bells of Florence 
rang out, and I was loath to come down into the lower 
world, knowing that I shall never again look heavenward 
from an old tower-top in such a soft calm evening as 
this. Yet I am not loath to go away ; impatient rather ; 
for, taking no root, I soon weary of any soil in which 
I may be temporarily deposited. The same impatience I 
sometimes feel or conceive of as regards this earthly 
life 

I forgot to mention that Powers showed me, in his 
studio, the model of the statue of America, which he 
wished the government to buy. It has great merit, and 
embodies the ideal of youth, freedom, progress, and 
whatever we consider as distinctive of our country's 
character and destiny. It is a female figure, vigorous, 
beautiful, planting its foot lightly on a broken chain, and 
pointing upward. The face has a high look of intelli- 
gence and lofty feeling ; the form, nude to the middle, 
has all the charms of womanhood, and is thus warmed 
and redeemed out of the, cold allegoric sisterhood who 
have generally no merit in chastity, being really without 
sex. I somewhat question whether it is quite the thing, 
however, to make a genuine woman out of an allegory : 
we ask, Who is to wed this lovely virgin ? and we are 
not satisfied to banish her into the realm of chilly 
thought. But I liked the statue, and all the better for 
what I criticise, and was sorry to see the huge package 
in which the finished marble lies bundled up, ready to 
be sent to our country, — which does not call for it. 

Mr. Powers and his two daughters called to take leave 
of us, and at parting I expressed a hope of seeing him 



1858,] ITALY. 145 

in America. He said that it would make him very un- 
happy to believe that- he should never return thither ; 
but it seems to me that he has no such definite purpose 
of return as would be certain to bring itself to pass. 
It makes a very unsatisfactory life, thus to spend the 
greater part of it in exile. In such a case we are al- 
ways deferring the reality of life till a future moment, 
and, by and by, we have deferred it till there are no 
future moments ; or, if we do go back, we find that life 
has shifted whatever of reality it had to the country 
where we deemed ourselves only living temporarily ; and 
so between two stools we come to the ground, and make 
ourselves a part of one or the other country only by 
laying our bones in its soil. It is particularly a pity in 
Powers's case, because he is so very American in char- 
acter, and the only convenience for him of his Italian 
residence is, that here he can supply himself with marble, 
and with workmen to chisel it according to his designs. 

SIENA. 

October 2d. — Yesterday morning, at six o'clock, we 
left our ancient tower, and threw a parting glance — 
and a rather sad one — over the misty Val d' Arno. 
This summer will look like a happy one in our children's 
retrospect, and also, no doubt, in the years that remain 
to ourselves; and, in truth, I have found it a peaceful 
and not uncheerful one. 

It was not a pleasant morning, and Monte Morello, 
looking down on Florence!, had on its cap, betokening 
foul weather, according to the proverb. Crossing the 
suspension-bridge, we reached the Leopoldo railway 
without entering the city. By some mistake, — or per- 
haps because nobody ever travels by first-class carriages 

VOL. II. 7 J 



146 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

in Tuscany, — we found we had received second-class 
tickets, and were put into a long, crowded carriage, full 
of priests, military men, commercial travellers, and other 
respectable people, facing one another lengthwise along 
the carriage, and many of them smoking cigars. They 
were all perfectly civil, and I think I must own that the 
manners of this second-class would compare favorably 
with those of an American first-class one. 

At Empoli, about an hour after we started, we had to 
change carriages, the main train proceeding to Leghorn. 
.... My observations along the road were very scanty : 
a hilly country, with several old towns seated on the most 
elevated hill-tops, as is common throughout Tuscany, or 
sometimes a fortress with a town on the plain at its base ; 
or, once or twice, the towers and battlements of a mediae- 
val castle, commanding the pass below it. Near Flor- 
ence the country was fertile in the vine and olive, and 
looked as unpicturesque as that sort of fertility usually 
makes it ; not but what I have come to think better of 
the tint of the olive-leaf than when I first saw it. In the 
latter part of our journey I remember a wild stream, of a 
greenish hue, but transparent, rushing along over a rough 
bed, and before reaching Siena we rumbled into a long 
tunnel, and emerged from it near the city 

We drove up hill and down (for the surface of Siena 
seems to be nothing but an irregularity) through narrow 
old streets, and were set down at the Aquila Nera, a grim- 
looking albergo near the centre of the town. Mrs. S 

had already taken rooms for us there, and to these we were 
now ushered up the highway of a dingy stone staircase, 
and into a small, brick-paved parlor. The house seemed 
endlessly old, and all the glimpses that we caught of Siena 
out of window seemed more ancient still. Almost within 
arm's reach, across a narrow street, a tall palace of gray, 



1858.] ITALY. 147 

time-worn stone clambered skyward, with arched win- 
dows, and square windows, and large windows and small, 
scattered up and down its side. It is the Palazzo Tolo- 
mei, and looks immensely venerable. From the windows 
of our bedrooms we looked into a broader street, though 
still not very wide, and into a small piazza, the most con- 
spicuous object in which was a column, bearing on its top 
a bronze wolf suckling Romulus and Remus. This sym- 
bol is repeated in other parts of the city, and seems to 
indicate that the Sienese people pride themselves in a 
Roman origin. In another direction, over the tops of 
the houses, we saw a very high tower, with battlements 
projecting around its summit, so that it was a fortress in 
the air ; and this I have since found to be the Palazzo 
Publico. It was pleasant, looking downward into the 
little old piazza and narrow streets, to see the swarm of 
life on the pavement, the life of to-day just as new as if 
it had never been lived before ; the citizens, the priests, 
the soldiers, the mules and asses with their panniers, the 
diligence lumbering along, with a postilion in a faded 
crimson coat bobbing up and down on the off-horse. 
Such a bustling scene, vociferous, too, with various 
street-cries, is wonderfully set off by the gray antiquity 
of the town, and makes the town look older than if it 
were a solitude. 

Soon Mr. and Mrs. Story came, and accompanied us 
to look for lodgings. They also drove us about the city 
in their carriage, and showed us the outside of the Palazzo 
Publico, and of the cathedral and other remarkable edi- 
fices. The aspect of Siena is far more picturesque than 
that of any other town in Italy, so far as I know Italian 
towns ; and yet, now that I have written it, I remember 
Perugia, and feel that the observation is a mistake. But 
at any rate Siena is remarkably picturesque, standing on 



148 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

such a site, on the verge and within the crater of an ex- 
tinct volcano, and therefore being as uneven as the sea 
in a tempest ; the streets so narrow, ascending between 
tall, ancient palaces, while the side streets rush headlong 
down, only to be threaded by sure-footed mules, such as 
climb Alpine heights ; old stone balconies on the palace 
fronts ; old arched doorways, and windows set in frames 
of Gothic architecture; arcades, resembling canopies of 
stone, with quaintly sculptured statues in the richly 
wrought Gothic niches of each pillar ; — everything mas- 
sive and lofty, yet minutely interesting when you look at 
it stone by stone. The Florentines, and the Romans too, 
have obliterated, as far as they could, all the interest of 
their mediaeval structures by covering them with stucco, 
so that they have quite lost their character, and affect the 
spectator with no reverential idea of age. Here the city 
is all overwritten with black-letter, and the glad Italian 
sun makes the effect so much the stronger. 

We took a lodging, and afterwards J and I ram- 
bled about, and went into the cathedral for a moment, 
and strayed also into the Piazza del Campo, the great 
public square of Siena. I am not in the mood for further 
description of public places now, so shall say a word or 
two about the old palace in which we have established 
ourselves. We have the second piano, and dwell amid 
faded grandeur, having for our saloon what seems to have 
been a ball-room. It is ornamented with a great fresco 
in the centre of the vaulted ceiling, and others covering 
the sides of the apartment, and surrounded with arabesque 
frameworks, where Cupids gambol and chase one another. 
The subjects of the frescos I cannot make out, not that 
they are faded like Giotto's, for they are as fresh as roses, 
and are done in an exceedingly workmanlike style ; but 
they are allegories of Fame and Plenty and other matters, 



1858.] ITALY. 149 

such as I could never understand. Our whole accommo- 
dation is in similar style, — spacious, magnificent, and 
mouldy. 

In the evening Miss S and I drove to the railway, 

and on the arrival of the train from Florence we watched 
with much eagerness the unlading of the luggage-van. 
At last the whole of our ten trunks and tin bandbox were 
produced, and finally my leather bag, in which was my 
journal and a manuscript book containing my sketch of a 
romance. It gladdened my very heart to see it, and I 
shall think the better of Tuscan promptitude and accuracy 
for so quickly bringing it back to me. (It was left be- 
hind, under one of the rail-carriage seats.) We find all 
the public officials, whether of railway, police, or custom- 
house, extremely courteous and pleasant to encounter; 
they seem willing to take trouble and reluctant to give it, 
and it is really a gratification to find that such civil people 
will sometimes oblige you by taking a paul or two aside. 

October 3d. — I took several strolls about the city 
yesterday, and find it scarcely extensive enough to get 
lost in ; and if we go far from the centre we soon come 
to silent streets, with only here and there an individual ; 
and the inhabitants stare from their doors and windows 
at the stranger, and turn round to look at him after 
he has passed. The interest of the old town would 
soon be exhausted for the traveller, but I can conceive 
that a thoughtful and shy man might settle down here 
with the view of making the place a home, and spend 
many years in a sombre kind of happiness. I should 
prefer it to Florence as a residence, but it would be 
terrible without an independent life in one's own mind. 

U and I walked out in the afternoon, and went 

into the Piazza del Campo, the principal place of the 



150 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

city, and a very noble and peculiar one. It is much in 
the form of an amphitheatre, and the surface of the 
ground seems to be slightly scooped out, so that it 
resembles the shallow basin of a shell. It is thus a 
much better site for an assemblage of the populace than 
if it were a perfect level. A semicircle or truncated 
ellipse of stately and ancient edifices surround the piazza, 
with arches opening beneath them, through which streets 
converge hitherward. One side of the piazza is a straight 
line, and is occupied by the Palazzo Publico, which is a 
most noble and impressive Gothic structure. It has not 
the mass of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence, but is 
more striking. It has a long battlemented front, the 
central part of which rises eminent above the rest, in a 
great square bulk, which is likewise crowned with battle- 
ments. This is much more picturesque than the one 
great block of stone into which the Palazzo Vecchio is 
consolidated. At one extremity of this long front of 
the Palazzo Publico rises a tower, shooting up its shaft 
high, high into the air, and bulging out there into a 
battlemented fortress, within which the tower, slenderer 
than before, climbs to a still higher region. I do not 
know whether the summit of the tower is higher or so 
high as that of the Palazzo Vecchio ; but the length of 
the shaft, free of the edifice, is much greater, and so 
produces the more elevating effect. The whole front of 
the Palazzo Publico is exceedingly venerable, with arched 
windows, Gothic carvings, and all the old-time ornaments 
that betoken it to have stood a great while, and the gray 
strength that will hold it up at least as much longer. 
At one end of the facade, beneath the shadow of the 
tower, is a grand and beautiful porch, supported on 
square pillars, within each of which is a niche containing 
a statue of mediaeval sculpture. 



1858.] ITALY. 151 

The great Piazza del Campo is the market-place of 
Siena. In the morning it was thronged with booths 
and stalls, especially of fruit and vegetable dealers ; but 
as in Florence, they melted away in the sunshine, gradu- 
ally withdrawing themselves into the shadow thrown 
from the Palazzo Publico. 

On the side opposite the palace is an antique fountain 
of marble, ornamented with two statues and a series of 
bas-reliefs ; and it was so much admired in its day that its 
sculptor received the name " Del Eonte." I am loath to 
leave the piazza and palace without finding some word or 
two to suggest their antique majesty, in the sunshine and 
the shadow; and how fit it seemed, notwithstanding 
their venerableness, that there should be a busy crowd 
filling up the great, hollow amphitheatre, and crying their 
fruit and little merchandises, so that all the curved line of 
stately old edifices helped to reverberate the noise. The 
life of to-day, within the shell of a time past, is wonder- 
fully fascinating. 

Another point to which a stranger's footsteps are 
drawn by a kind of magnetism, so that he will be apt to 
find himself there as often as he strolls out of his hotel, 
is the cathedral. It stands in the highest part of the 
city, and almost every street runs into some other street 

which meanders hitherward. On our way thither, U 

and I came to a beautiful front of black and white mar- 
ble, in somewhat the same style as the cathedral; in 
fact, it was the baptistery, and should have made a part 
of it, according to the original design, which contem- 
plated a structure of vastly greater extent than this 
actual one. We entered the baptistery, and found the 
interior small, but very rich in its clustered columns and 
intersecting arches, and its frescos, pictures, statues, and 
ornaments. Moreover, a father and mother had brought 



152 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

their baby to be baptized, and the poor little thing, in 
its gay swaddling-clothes, looked just like what I have 
seen in old pictures, and a good deal like an Indian 
pappoose. It gave one little slender squeak when the 
priest put the water on its forehead, and then was quiet 
again. 

We now went round to the facade of the cathedral. 
.... It is of black and white marble, with, I believe, 
an intermixture of red and other colors; but time has 
toned them down, so that white, black, and red do not 
contrast so strongly with one another as they may have 
done five hundred years ago. The architecture is gen- 
erally of the pointed Gothic style, but there are likewise 
carved arches over the doors and windows, and a variety 
which does not produce the effect of confusion, — a mag- 
nificent eccentricity, an exuberant imagination flowering 
out in stone. On high, in the great peak of the front, 
and throwing its colored radiance into the nave within, 
there is a round window of immense circumference, the 
painted figures in which we can see dimly from the out- 
side. But what I wish to express, and never can, is the 
multitudinous richness of the ornamentation of the front : 
the arches within arches, sculptured inch by inch, of the 
deep doorways; the statues of saints, some making a 
hermitage of a niche, others standing forth ; the scores 
of busts, that look like faces of ancient people gazing 
down out of the cathedral; the projecting shapes of 
stone lions, — the thousand forms of Gothic fancy, which 
seemed to soften the marble and express whatever it 
liked, and allow it to harden again to last forever. But 
my description seems like knocking off the noses of some 
of the busts, the fingers and toes of the statues, the pro- 
jecting points of the architecture, jumbling them all up 
together, and flinging them down upon the page. This 



1858.] ITALY. 153 

gives no idea of the truth, nor, least of all, can it shadow 
forth that solemn whole, mightily combined out of all 
these minute particulars, and sanctifying the entire space 
of ground over which this cathedral-front flings its shad- 
ow, or on which it reflects the sun. A majesty and 
a minuteness, neither interfering with the other, each 
assisting the other ; this is what I love in Gothic archi- 
tecture. We went in and walked about ; but I mean to 
go again before sketching the interior in my poor water- 
colors. 

October Uh. — On looking again at the Palazzo Pub- 
lico, I see that the pillared portal which I have spoken of 
does not cover an entrance to the palace, but is a chapel, 
with an altar, and frescos above it. Bouquets of fresh 
flowers are on the altar, and a lamp burns, in all the 
daylight, before the crucifix. The chapel is quite unen- 
closed, except by an openwork balustrade of marble, on 
which the carving looks very ancient. Nothing could be 
more convenient for the devotions of the crowd in the 
piazza, and no doubt the daily prayers offered at the 
shrine might be numbered by the thousand, — brief, but 
I hope earnest, — like those glimpses I used to catch at 
the blue sky, revealing so much in an instant, while I 
was toiling at Brook Parm. Another picturesque thing 
about the Palazzo Publico is a great stone balcony 
quaintly wrought, about midway in the front and high 
aloft, with two arched windows opening into it. 

After another glimpse at the cathedral, too, I realize 
how utterly I have failed in conveying the idea of its 
elaborate ornament, its twisted and clustered pillars, and 
numberless devices of sculpture ; nor did I mention the 
venerable statues that stand all round the summit of 
the edifice, relieved against the sky, — the highest of all 
7* 



15 i FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

being one of the Saviour, on the topmost peak of the 
front ; nor the tall tower that ascends from one side of 
the building, and is built of layers of black and white 
marble piled one upon another in regular succession; 
nor the dome that swells upward close beside this tower. 

Had the cathedral been constructed on the plan and 
dimensions at first contemplated, it would have been in- 
comparably majestic ; the finished portion, grand as it 
is, being only what was intended for a transept. One 
of the walls of what was to have been the nave is still 
standing, and looks like a ruin, though, I believe, it 
has been turned to account as the wall of a palace, the 
space of the never-completed nave being now a court or 
street. 

The whole family of us were kindly taken out yester- 
day, to dine and spend the day at the Villa Belvedere 
with our friends Mr. and Mrs. Story. The vicinity of 
Siena is much more agreeable than that of Florence, 
being cooler, breezier, with more foliage and shrubbery 
both near at hand and in the distance ; and the prospect, 
Mr. Story told us, embraces a diameter of about a hun- 
dred miles between hills north and south. The Villa 
Belvedere was built and owned by an Englishman now 
deceased, who has left it to his butler, and its lawns 
and shrubbery have something English in their character, 
and there was almost a dampness in the grass, which 
really pleased me in this parched Italy. Within the 
house the walls are hung with fine old-fashioned engrav- 
ings from the pictures of Gainsborough, West, and other 
English painters. The Englishman, though he had chosen 
to live and die in Italy, had evidently brought his native 
tastes and peculiarities along with him. Mr. Story thinks 
of buying this villa: I do not know but I might be 
tempted to buy it myself if Siena were a practicable 



1858.] ITALY. 155 

residence for the entire year ; but the winter here, with 
the bleak mountain-winds of a hundred miles round 
about blustering against it, must be terribly disagree- 
able. 

We spent a very pleasant day, turning over books or 
talking on the lawn, whence we could behold scenes pic- 
turesque afar, and rich vineyard glimpses near at haud. 
Mr. Story is the most variously accomplished and brill- 
iant person, the fullest of social life and fire, whom I 
ever met; and without seeming to make an effort, he 
kept us amused and entertained the whole day long ; not 
wearisomely entertained neither, as we should have been 
if he had not let his fountain play naturally. Still, though 
he bubbled and brimmed over with fun, he left the im- 
pression on me that .... there is a pain and care, 
bred, it may be, out of the very richness of his gifts and 
abundance of his outward prosperity. Rich, in the prime 
of life, .... and children budding and blossoming 
around him as fairly as his heart could wish, with spark- 
ling talents, — so many, that if he choose to neglect or 
fling away one, or two, or three, he would still have 
enough left to shine with, — who should be happy if not 
he? . . . .. 

Towards sunset we all walked out into the podere, 
pausing a little while to look down into a well that stands 
on the verge of the lawn. Within the spacious circle of 
its stone curb was an abundant growth of maidenhair, 
forming a perfect wreath of thickly clustering leaves quite 
round, and trailing its tendrils downward to the water 
which gleamed beneath. It was a very pretty sight. Mr. 
Story bent over the well and uttered deep, musical tones, 
which were reverberated from the hollow depths with 
wonderful effect, as if a spirit dwelt within there, and 
(unlike the spirits that speak through mediums) sent him 



156 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. 

back responses even pro-founder and more melodious 
than the tones that awakened them. Such a responsive 
well as this might have been taken for an oracle in old 
days. 

We went along paths that led from one vineyard to 
another, and which might have led us for miles across 
the country. The grapes had been partly gathered, but 
still there were many purple or white clusters hanging 
heavily on the vines. We passed cottage doors, and saw 
groups of contadiui and contadine in their festal attire, 
and they saluted us graciously; but it was observable 
that one of the men generally lingered on our track to 
see that no grapes were stolen, for there were a good 
many young people and children in our train, not only 
our own, but some from a neigboriug villa. These Ital- 
ian peasants are a kindly race, but, I doubt, not very hos- 
pitable of grape or fig. 

There was a beautiful sunset, and by the time we 
reached the house again the comet was already visible 
amid the unextinguished glow of daylight. A Mr. and 

Mrs. B , Scotch people from the next villa, had 

come to see the Storys, and we sat till tea-time reading, 
talking, William Story drawing caricatures for his chil- 
dren's amusement and ours, and all of us sometimes get- 
ting up to look at the comet, which blazed brighter and 
brighter till it went down into the mists of the horizon. 
Among the caricatures was one of a Presidential candi- 
date, evidently a man of very malleable principles, and 
likely to succeed. 

Late in the evening (too late for little Rosebud) we 
drove homeward. The streets of old Siena looked very 
grim at night, and it seemed like gazing into caverns 
to glimpse down some of the side streets as we passed, 
with a light burning dimly at the end of them. It was 



1858.] ITALY. 157 

after ten when we readied home, and climbed up our 
gloomy staircase, lighted by the glimmer of some wax 
moccoli which I had in my pocket. 

October hth. — I have been two or three times into 
the cathedral ; .... the whole interior is of marble, in 
alternate lines of black and white, each layer being about 
eight inches in width and extending horizontally. It 
looks very curiously, and might remind the spectator of 
a stuff with horizontal stripes. Nevertheless, the effect 
is exceedingly rich, these alternate lines stretching away 
along the walls and round the clustered pillars, seen 
aloft, and through the arches ; everywhere, this inlay of 
black and white. Every sort of ornament that could be 
thought of seems to have been crammed into the cathe- 
dral in one place or another : gildiug, frescos, pictures ; 
a roof of blue, spangled with golden stars ; a magnificent 
wheel-window of old painted glass over the entrance, and 
another at the opposite end of the cathedral ; statues, 
some of marble, others of gilded bronze ; pulpits of 
carved marble ; a gilded organ ; a cornice of marble 
busts of the popes, extending round the entire church ; 
a pavement, covered all over with a strange kind of 
mosaic work in various marbles, wrought into marble 
pictures of sacred subjects ; immense clustered pillars 
supporting the round arches that divide the nave from 
the side aisles ; a clere-story of windows within pointed 
arches ; — it seemed as if the spectator were reading an 
antique volume written in black-letter of a small charac- 
ter, but conveying a high and solemn meaning. I can 
find no way of expressing its effect on me, so quaint 
and venerable as I feel this cathedral to be in its im- 
mensity of striped waistcoat, now dingy with five centu- 
ries of wear. I ought not to say anything that might 



158 FEENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

detract from the grandeur and sanctity of the blessed 
edifice, for these attributes are really uninjured by any 
of the Gothic oddities which I have hinted at. 

We went this morning to the Institute of the Fine 
Arts, which is interesting as containing a series of the 
works of the Sienese painters from a date earlier than 
that of Cimabue. There is a dispute, I believe, between 
Florence and Siena as to which city may claim the 
credit of having originated the modern art of painting. 
The Florentines put forward Cimabue as the first artist, 
but as the Sienese produce a picture, by Guido da Siena, 
dated before the birth of Cimabue, the victory is de- 
cidedly with them. As to pictorial merit, to my taste 
there is none in either of these old painters, nor in any 
of their successors for a long time afterwards. At the 
Institute there are several rooms hung with early pro- 
ductions of the Sienese school, painted before the inven- 
tion of oil-colors, on wood shaped into Gothic altar- 
pieces. The backgrounds still retain a bedimmed splendor 
of gilding. There is a plentiful use of red, and I can 
conceive that the pictures must have shed an illumina- 
tion through the churches where they were displayed. 
There is often, too, a minute care bestowed on the 
faces in the pictures, and sometimes a very strong ex- 
pression, stronger than modern artists get, and it is 
very strange how they attained this merit while they 
were so inconceivably rude in other respects. It is 
remarkable that all the early faces of the Madonna are 
especially stupid, and all of the same type, a sort of 
face such as one might carve on a pumpkin, representing 
a heavy, sulky, phlegmatic woman, with a long and low 
arch of the nose. This same dull face continues to be 
assigned to the Madonna, even when the countenances 
of the surrounding saints and angels are characterized 



1858.] ITALY. 159 

with power and beauty, so that I think there must have 
been some portrait of this sacred personage reckoned 
authentic, which the early painters followed and relig- 
iously repeated. 

At last we came to a picture by Sodoma, the most 
illustrious representative of the Sienese school. It was 
a fresco ; Christ bound to the pillar, after having been 
scourged. . I do believe that painting has never done 
anything better, so far as expression is concerned, than 
this figure. In all these generations since it was painted 
it must have softened thousands of hearts, drawn down 
rivers of tears, been more effectual than a million of 
sermons. Really, it is a thing to stand and weep at. 
No other painter has done anything that can deserve to 
be compared to this. 

There are some other pictures by Sodoma, among 
them a Judith, very noble and admirable, and full of a 
profound sorrow for the deed which she has felt it her 
mission to do. 

Aquila Nera, October 7th. — Our lodgings in Siena 
had been taken only for five days, as they were already 
engaged after that period ; so yesterday we returned to 
our old quarters at the Black Eagle. 

In the forenoon J and I went out of one of the 

gates (the road from it leads to Florence) and had a 
pleasant country walk. Our way wound downward, 
round the hill on which Siena stands, and gave us 
views of the Duomo and its campanile, seemingly pretty 
near, after we had walked long enough to be quite 
remote from them. Sitting awhile on the parapet of 
a bridge, I saw a laborer chopping the branches off a 
poplar-tree which he had felled; and, when it was 
trimmed, he took up the large trunk on one of his 



160 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

shoulders and carried it off, seemingly with ease. He 
did not look like a particularly robust man ; but I have 
never seen such an herculean feat attempted by an Eng- 
lishman or American. It has frequently struck me that 
the Italians are able to put forth a great deal of strength 
in such insulated efforts as this ; but I have been told 
that they are less capable of continued endurance and 
hardship than our own race. I do not know why it 
should be so, except that I presume their food is less 
strong than ours. There was no other remarkable 
incident in our walk, which lay chiefly through gorges 
of the hills, winding beneath high cliffs of the brown 
Siena earth, with many pretty scenes of rural landscape ; 
vineyards everywhere, and olive-trees ; a mill on its 
little stream, over which there was an old stone bridge, 
with a graceful arch ; farm-houses ; a villa or two ; sub- 
terranean passages, passing from the roadside through 
the high banks into the vineyards. At last we turned 
aside into a road which led us pretty directly to another 
gate of the city, and climbed steeply upward among tan- 
neries, where the young men went about with their well- 
shaped legs bare, their trousers being tucked up till they 
were strictly breeches and nothing else. The campanile 
stood high above us; and by and by, and very soon, 
indeed, the steep ascent of the street brought us into the 
neighborhood of the Piazza del Campo, and of our own 

hotel Erom about twelve o'clock till one, I sat 

at my chamber window watching the specimens of human 
life as displayed in the Piazza Tolomei. [Here follow 
several pages of moving objects.] .... Of course, a 
multitude of other people passed by, but the curiousness 
of the catalogue is the prevalence of the martial and 
religious elements. The general costume of the inhabi- 
tants is frocks or sacks, loosely made, and rather shabby ; 



1858.] ITALY. 161 

often, shirt-sleeves ; or the coat hung over one shoulder. 
They wear felt hats and straw. People of respecta- 
bility seem to prefer cylinder hats, either black or drab, 
and broadcloth frock-coats in the Erench fashion; but, 
like the rest, they look a little shabby. Almost all the 
women wear shawls. Ladies in swelling petticoats, and 
with fans, some of which are highly gilded, appear. 
The people generally are not tall, but have a sufficient 
breadth of shoulder; in complexion, similar to Ameri- 
cans ; bearded, universally. The vehicle used for driving 
is a little gig without a top ; but these are seldom seen, 
and still less frequently a cab or other carriages. The 
gait of the people has not the energy of business or 
decided purpose. Everybody appears to lounge, and to 
have time for a moment's chat, and a disposition to rest, 
reason or none. 

After dinner I walked out of another gate of the city, 
and wandered among some pleasant country lanes, bor- 
dered with hedges, and wearing an English aspect ; at 
least, I could fancy so. The vicinity of Siena is delight- 
ful to walk about in; there being a verdant outlook, a 
wide prospect of purple mountains, though no such level 
valley as the Val d' Arno ; and the city stands so high 
that its towers and domes are seen more picturesquely 
from many points than those of Florence can be. Neither 
is the pedestrian so cruelly shut into narrow lanes, be- 
tween high stone-walls, over which he cannot get a 
glimpse of landscape. As I walked by the hedges yes- 
terday I could have fancied that the olive-trunks were 
those of apple-trees, and that I was in one or other of 
the two lands that I love better than Italy. But the 
great white villas and the farm-houses were unlike any- 
thing I have seen elsewhere, .or that I should wish to see 
again, though proper enough to Italy. 



162 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

October 9th. — Thursday forenoon, 8th, we went to 
see the Palazzo Publico. There are some fine old halls 
and chapels, adorned with ancient frescos and pictures, 
of which I remember a picture of the Virgin by Sodoma, 
very beautiful, and other fine pictures by the same mas- 
ter. The architecture of these old rooms is grand, the 
roofs being supported by ponderous arches, which are 
covered with frescos, still magnificent, though faded, 
darkened, and defaced. We likewise saw an antique 
casket of wood, enriched with gilding, which had once 
contained an arm of Joh'j. the Baptist, — so the custode 
told us. One of the halls was hung with the portraits of 
eight popes and nearly forty cardinals, who were natives 
of Siena. I have done hardly any other sight-seeing 
except a daily visit to the cathedral, which I admire and 
love the more the oftener I go thither. Its striped pe- 
culiarity ceases entirely to interfere with the grandeur 
and venerable beauty of its impression ; and I am never 
weary of gazing through the vista of its arches, and not- 
ing continually something that I had not seen before in 
its exuberant adornment. The pavement alone is inex- 
haustible, being covered all over with figures of life-size 
or larger, which look like immense engravings of Gothic 
or Scriptural scenes. There is Absalom hanging by his 
hair, and Joab slaying him with a spear. There is Sam- 
son belaboring the Philistines with the jawbone of an 
ass. There are armed knights in the tumult of battle, 
all wrought with wonderful expression. The figures are 
in white marble, inlaid with darker stone, and the shad- 
ing is effected by means of engraved lines in the marble, 
filled in with black. It would be possible, perhaps, to 
print impressions from some of these vast plates, for the 
process of cutting the lines was an exact anticipation 
of the modern art of engraving. However, the same 



1858.] ITALY. 163 

thing was done — and I suppose at about the same 
period — on monumental brasses, and I have seen im- 
pressions or rubbings from those for sale in the old Eng- 
lish churches. 

Yesterday morning, in the cathedral, Irwatched a wo- 
man at confession, being curious to see how long it 
would take her to tell her sins, the growth of a week 
perhaps. I know not how long she had been confessing 
when I first observed her, but nearly an hour passed 
before the priest came suddenly from the confessional, 
looking weary and moist Avith perspiration, and took his 
way out of the cathedral. The woman was left on her 
knees. This morning I watched another woman, and 
she too was very long about it, and I could see the face 
of the priest behind the curtain of the confessional, 
scarcely inclining his ear to the perforated tin through 
which the penitent communicated her outpourings. It 
must be very tedious to listen, day after day, to the minute 
and commonplace iniquities of the multitude of penitents, 
and it cannot be often that these are redeemed by the 
treasure-trove of a great sin. When her confession was 
over the woman came and sat down on the same bench 
with me, where her broad-brimmed straw hat was lying. 
She seemed to be a country woman, with a simple, ma- 
tronly face, which was solemnized and softened with the 
comfort that she had obtained by disburdening herself of 
the soil of worldly frailties and receiving absolution. An 
old woman, who haunts the cathedral, whispered to her, 
and she went and knelt down where a procession of 
priests were to pass, and then the old lady begged a cru- 
zia of me, and got a half-paul. It almost invariably hap- 
pens, in church or cathedral, that beggars address their 
prayers to the heretic visitor, and probably with more 
unction than to the Virgin or saints. However, I have 



164 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

nothing to say against the sincerity of this people's devo- 
tion. They give all the proof of it that a mere spectator 
can estimate. 

Last evening we all went out to see the comet, which 
then reached *its climax of lustre. It was like a lofty 
plume of fire, and grew very brilliant as the night dark- 
ened. 

October 10^. — This morning, too, we went to the 
cathedral, and sat long listening to the music of the 
organ and voices, and witnessing rites and ceremonies 
which are far older than even the ancient edifice where 
they were exhibited. A good many people were present, 
sitting, kneeling, or walking about, — a freedom that 
contrasts very agreeably with the grim formalities of 
English churches and our own meeting-houses. Many 
persons were in their best attire; but others came in, 
with unabashed simplicity, in their old garments of labor, 
sunburnt women from their toil among the vines and 
olives. One old peasant I noticed with his withered 
shanks in breeches and blue yarn stockings. The people 
of whatever class are wonderfully tolerant of heretics, 
never manifesting any displeasure or annoyance, though 
they must see that we are drawn thither by curiosity 
alone, and merely pry while they pray. I heartily wish 
the priests were better men, and that human nature, di- 
vinely influenced, could be depended upon for a constant 
supply and succession of good and pure ministers, their 
religion has so many admirable points. And then it is a 
sad pity that this noble and beautiful cathedral should be 
a mere fossil shell, out of which the life has died long 
ago. But for many a year yet to come the tapers will 
burn before the high altar, the Host will be elevated, the 
incense diffuse its fragrance, the confessionals be open to 



1858.] ITALY. 165 

receive the penitents. I saw a father entering with two 
little bits of boys, just big enough to toddle along, hold- 
ing his hand on either side. The father dipped his fingers 
into the marble font of holy water, — which, on its ped- 
estals, was two or three times as high as those small 
Christians, — and wetted a hand of each, and taught 
them how to cross themselves. When they come to be 
men it will be impossible to convince those children that 
there is no efficacy in holy water, without plucking up all 
religious faith and sentiment by the roots. Generally, I 
suspect, when people throw off the faith they were bom 
in, the best soil of their hearts is apt to cling to its roots. 

Raised several feet above the pavement, against every 
clustered pillar along the nave of the cathedral, is placed 
a statue of Gothic sculpture. In various places are sit- 
ting statues of popes of Sienese nativity, all of whom, I 
believe, have a hand raised in the act of blessing. Shrines 
and chapels, set in grand, heavy frames of pillared archi- 
tecture, stand all along the aisles and transepts, and these 
seem in many instances to have been built and enriched 
by noble families, whose arms are sculptured on the ped- 
estals of the pillars, sometimes with a cardinal's hat above 
to denote the rank of one of its members. How much 
pride, love, and reverence in the lapse of ages must have 
clung to the sharp points of all this sculpture and archi- 
tecture ! The cathedral is a religion in itself, — some- 
thing worth dying for to those who have an hereditary 
interest in it. In the pavement, yesterday, I noticed the 
gravestone of a person who fell six centuries ago in the 
battle of Monte Aperto, and was buried here by public 
decree as a meed of valor. 

This afternoon I took a walk out of one of the city 
gates, and found the country about Siena as beautiful in 
this direction as in all others. I came to a. little stream 



166 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

flowing over into a pebbly bed, and collecting itself into 
pools, with a scanty rivulet between. Its glen was deep, 
and was crossed by a bridge of several lofty and narrow 
arches like those of a Roman aqueduct. It is a modern 
structure, however. Earther on, as I wound round along 
the base of a hill which fell down upon the road by pre- 
cipitous cliffs of brown earth, I saw a gray, ruined wall 
on the summit, surrounded with cypress-trees. This tree 
is very frequent about Siena, and the scenery is made soft 
and beautiful by a variety of other trees and shrubbery, 
without which these hills and gorges would have scarcely 
a charm. The road was thronged with country people, 
mostly women and children, who had been spending the 
feast-day in Siena ; and parties of boys were chasing one 
another through the fields, pretty much as boys do in 
New England of a Sunday, but the Sienese lads had not 
the sense of Sabbath-breaking like our boys. Sunday 
with these people is like any Other feast-day, and conse- 
crated to cheerful enjoyment. So much religious observ- 
ance, as regards outward forms, is diffused through the 
whole week that they have no need to intensify the Sab- 
bath except by making it gladden the other days. 

Returning through the same gate by which I had come 
out, I ascended into the city by a long and steep street, 
which was paved with bricks set edgewise. This pave- 
ment is common in many of the streets, which, being too 
steep for horses and carriages, are meant only to sustain 
the lighter tread of mules and asses. The more level 
streets are paved with broad, smooth flag-stones, like 
those of Elorence, — a fashion which I heartily regret to 
change for the little penitential blocks of Rome. The 
walls of Siena in their present state, and so far as I have 
seen them, are chiefly brick ; but there are intermingled 
fragments of ancient stone-work, and I wonder why the 



1858.] ITALY. 167 

latter does not prevail more largely. The Romans, how- 
ever, — and Siena had Roman characteristics, — always 
liked to build of brick, a taste that has made their ruins 
(now that the marble slabs are torn off) much less grand 
than they ought to have been. I am grateful to the old 
Sienese for having used stone so largely in their domestic 
architecture, and thereby rendered their city so grimly 
picturesque, with its black palaces frowning upon one 
another from arched windows, across narrow streets, to 
the height of six stories, like opposite ranks of tall men 
looking sternly into one another's eyes. 

October Wth. — Again I went to the cathedral this 
morning, and spent an hour listening to the music and 
looking through the orderly intricacies of the arches, 
where many vistas open away among the columns of the 
choir. There are five clustered columns on each side of 
the nave; then under the dome there are two more 
arches, not in a straight line, but forming the segment of 
a circle ; and beyond the circle of the dome there are four 
more arches, extending to the extremity of the chancel. 
I should have said, instead of " clustered columns " as 
above, that there are five arches along the nave supported 
by columns. This cathedral has certainly bewitched me, 
to write about it so much, effecting nothing with my 
pains. I should judge the width of each arch to be about 
twenty feet, and the thickness of each clustered pillar is 
eight or ten more, and the length of the entire building 
may be between two and three hundred feet ; not very 
large, certainly, but it makes an impression of grandeur 
independent of size 

I never shall succeed even in reminding myself of the 
venerable magnificence of this minster, with its arches, 
its columns, its cornice of popes' heads, its great wheel 



168 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

windows, its manifold ornament, all combining in one 
vast effect, though many men have labored individually, 
and through a long course of time, to produce this mul- 
tifarious handiwork and headwork. 

I now took a walk out of the city. A road turned im- 
mediately to the left as I emerged from the city, and soon 
proved to be a rustic lane leading past, several villas and 
farm-houses. It was a very pleasant walk, with vine- 
yards and olive-orchards on each side, and now and then 
glimpses of the towers and sombre heaped-up palaces of 
Siena, and now a rural seclusion again ; for the hills rise 
and the valleys fall like the swell and subsidence of the 
sea after a gale, so that Siena may be quite hidden within 
a quarter of a mile of its wall, or may be visible, I doubt 
not, twenty miles away. It is a fine old town, with every 
promise of health and vigor in its atmosphere, and really, 
if I could take root anywhere, I know not but it could as 
well be here as in another place. It would only be a 
kind of despair, however, that would ever make me dream 
of finding a home in Italy ; a sense that I had lost my 
country through absence or incongruity, and that earth 
is not an abiding-place. I wonder that we Americans 
love our country at all, it having no limits and no one- 
ness ; and when you try to make it a matter of the heart, 
everything falls away except one's native State ; neither 
can you seize hold of that unless you tear it out of the 
Union, bleeding and quivering. Yet unquestionably, we 
do stand by our national flag as stoutly as any people in 
the world, and I myself have felt the heart throb at sight 
of it as sensibly as other men. I think the singularity of 
our form of government contributes to give us a kind 
of patriotism, by separating us from other nations more 
entirely. If other nations had similar institutions, — if 
England, especially, were a democracy, — we should as 



1858.] ITALY. 169 

readily make ourselves at home in another country as 
now in a new State. 

October 12th. — And again we went to the cathedral 
this forenoon, and the whole family, except myself, 
sketched portions of it. Even Rosebud stood gravely 
sketching some of the inlaid figures of the pavement. 
As for me, I can but try to preserve some memorial of 
this beautiful edifice in ill-fitting words that never hit the 
mark. This morning visit was not my final one, for I 
went again after dinner and walked quite round the whole 
interior. I think I have not yet mentioned the rich carv- 
ings of the old oaken seats round the choir, and the curi- 
ous mosaic of lighter and darker woods, by which figures 
and landscapes are skilfully represented on the backs of 
some of the stalls. The process seems to be the same as 
the inlaying and engraving of the pavement, the material 
in one case being marble, in the other wood. The only 
other thing that I particularly noticed was, that in the 
fonts of holy water at the front entrance, marble fish are 
sculptured in the depths of the basin, and eels and shell- 
fish crawling round the brim. Have I spoken of the 
sumptuous carving of the capitals of the columns ? At 
any rate I have left a thousand beauties without a word. 
Here I drop the subject. As I took my parting glance 
the cathedral had a gleam of golden sunshine in its far 
depths, and it seemed to widen and deepen itself, as if to 
convince me of my error in saying, yesterday, that it is 
not very large. I wonder how I could say it. 

After taking leave of the cathedral, I found my way 
out of another of the city gates, and soon turned aside 
into a green lane. .... Soon the lane passed through 
a hamlet consisting of a few farm-houses, the shabbiest 
and dreariest that can be conceived, ancient, and ugly, 
8 



170 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

and dilapidated, with iron-grated windows below, and 
heavy wooden shutters on the windows above, — high, 
ruinous walls shutting in the courts, and ponderous 
gates, one of which was off its hinges. The farm-yards 
were perfect pictures of disarray and slovenly adminis- 
tration of home affairs. Only one of these houses had 
a door opening on the road, and that was the meanest in 
the hamlet. A flight of narrow stone stairs ascended 
from the threshold to the second story. All these houses 
were specimens of a rude antiquity, built of brick and 
stone, with the marks of arched doors and windows 
where a subsequent generation had shut up the lights, 
or the accesses which the original builders had opened. 
Humble as these dwellings are, — though large and high 
compared with rural residences in other countries, — 
they may very probably date back to the times when 
Siena was a warlike republic, and when every house in 
its neighborhood had need to be a fortress. I suppose, 
however, prowling banditti were the only enemies against 
whom a defence would be attempted. What lives must 
now be lived there, — in beastly ignorance, mental slug- 
gishness, hard toil for little profit, filth, and a horrible 
discomfort of fleas ; for if the palaces of Italy are over- 
run with these pests, what must the country hovels 
be! ... . 

We are now all ready for a start to-morrow. 

RADICOFANI. 

October \Zth. — We arranged to begin our journey at 

six It was a chill, lowering morning, and the 

rain blew a little in our faces before we had gone far, but 
did not continue long. The country soon lost the pleas- 
ant aspect which it wears immediately about Siena, and 



1858.] ITALY. 171 

grew very barren and dreary. Then it changed again 
for the better, the road leading us through a fertility of 
vines and olives, after which the dreary and barren hills 
came back again, and formed our prospect throughout 
most of the day. We stopped for our dejeuner a la four - 
chette at a little old town called San Quirico, which we en- 
tered through a ruined gateway, the town being entirely 
surrounded by its ancient wall. This wall is far more 
picturesque than that of Siena, being lofty and built of 
stone, with a machicolation of arches running quite round 
its top, like a cornice. It has little more than a single 
street, perhaps a quarter of a mile long, narrow, paved 
with flag-stones in the Florentine fashion, and lined with 
two rows of tall, rusty stone houses, without a gap be- 
tween them from end to end. The cafes were numerous 
in relation to the size of the town, and there were two 
taverns, — our own, the Eagle, being doubtless the best, 
and having three arched entrances in its front. Of these, 
the middle one led to the guests' apartments, the one on 
the right to the barn, and that on the left to the stable, 
so that, as is usual in Italian inns, the whole establish- 
ment was under one roof. We were shown into a brick- 
paved room on the first floor, adorned with a funny 
fresco of Aurora on the ceiling, and with some colored 

prints, both religious and profane 

As we drove into the town we noticed a Gothic church 
with two doors of peculiar architecture, and while our 
dejeuner was being prepared we went to see it. The 
interior had little that was remarkable, for it had been 
repaired early in the last century, and spoilt of course ; 
but an old triptych is still hanging in a chapel beside the 
high altar. It is painted on wood, and dates back beyond 
the invention of oil-painting, and represents the Virgin 
and some saints and angels. Neither is the exterior of 



17£ FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

the church particularly interesting, with the exception 
of the carving and ornaments of two of the doors. Both 
of them have round arches, deep and curiously wrought, 
and the pillars of one of the two are formed of a peculiar 
knot or twine in stone-work, such as I cannot well de- 
scribe, but it is both ingenious and simple. These pillars 
rest on two nondescript animals, which look as much like 
walruses as anything else. The pillars of the other door 
consist of two figures supporting the capitals, and them- 
selves standing on two handsomely carved lions. The 
work is curious, and evidently very ancient, and the 
material a red freestone. 

After lunch, J and I took a walk out of the gate 

of the town opposite to that of our entrance. There 
were no soldiers on guard, as at city gates of more im- 
portance ; nor do I think that there is really any gate 
to shut, but the massive stone gateway still stands entire 
over the empty arch. Looking back after we had passed 
through, I observed that the lofty upper story is con- 
verted into a dove-cot, and that pumpkins were put to 
ripen in some open chambers at one side. "We passed 
near the base of a tall, square tower, which is said to 
be of Roman origin. The little town is in the midst of 
a barren region, but its immediate neighborhood is fer- 
tile, and an olive-orchard, venerable of aspect, lay on the 
other side of the pleasant lane with its English hedges, 
and olive-trees grew likewise along the base of the city 
wall. The arched machicolations, which I have before 
mentioned, were here and there interrupted by a house 
which was built upon the old wall or incorporated into 
it ; and from the windows of one of them I saw ears of 
Indian corn hung out to ripen in the sun, and some- 
body was winnowing grain at a little door that opened 
through the wall. It was very pleasant to see the ancient 



1858.] ITALY. 173 

warlike rampart thus overcome with rustic peace. The 
ruined gateway is partly overgrown with ivy. 

Returning to our inn, along the street, we saw 

sketching one of the doors of the Gothic church, in the 
midst of a crowd of the good people of San Quirico, who 
made no scruple to look over her shoulder, pressing so 
closely as hardly to allow her elbow-room. I must own 
that I was too cowardly to come forward and take my 
share of this public notice, so I turned away to the inn 
and there awaited her coming. Indeed, she has seldom 
attempted to sketch without finding herself the nucleus 
of a throng. 

VITERBO. 

The Black Eagle, October 14itk. — Perhaps I had 
something more to say of San Quirico, but I shall 
merely add that there is a stately old palace of the 
Piccolomini close to the church above described. It 
is built in the style of the Roman palaces, and looked 
almost large enough to be one of them. Nevertheless, 
the basement story, or part of it, seems to be used as a 
barn and stable, for I saw a yoke of oxen in the en- 
trance. I cannot but mention a most wretched team of 
vettura-horses which stopped at the door of our albergo : 
poor, lean, downcast creatures, with deep furrows be- 
tween their ribs ; nothing but skin and bone, in short, 
and not even so much skin as they should have had, for 
it was partially worn off from their backs. The harness 
was fastened with ropes, the traces and reins were 
ropes; the carriage was old and shabby, and out of this 
miserable equipage there alighted an ancient gentleman 
and lady, whom our waiter affirmed to be the Prefect of 
Florence aud his wife. 

We left San Quirico at two o'clock, and followed an 



174 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

ascending road till we got into the region above the 
clouds; the landscape was very wide, but very dreary 
and barren, and grew more and more so till we began to 
climb the mountain of Radicofani, the peak of which had 
been blackening itself on the horizon almost the whole 
day. When we had come into a pretty high region we 
were assailed by a real mountain tempest of wind, rain, 
and hail, which pelted down upon us in good earnest, and 
cooled the air a little below comfort. As we toiled up 
the mountain its upper region presented a very striking 
aspect, looking as if a precipice had been smoothed and 
squared for the purpose of rendering the old castle on its 
summit more inaccessible than it was by nature. This is 
the castle of the robber-knight, Ghino di Tacco, whom 
Boccaccio introduces into the Decameron. A freebooter 
of those days must have set a higher value on such a 
rock as this than if it had been one mass of diamond, for 
no art of mediseval warfare could endanger him in such a 
fortress. Drawing yet nearer, we found the hillside im- 
mediately above us strewn with thousands upon thou- 
sands of great, fragments of stone. It looked as if some 
great ruin had taken place there, only it was too vast a 
ruin to have been the dismemberment and dissolution of 
anything made by man. 

We could now see the castle on the height pretty dis- 
tinctly. It seemed to impend over the precipice ; and 
close to the base of the latter we saw the street of a town 
on as strange and inconvenient a foundation as ever one 
was built upon. I suppose the inhabitants of the village 
were dependants of the old knight of the castle ; his 
brotherhood of robbers, as they married and had families, 
settled there under the shelter of the eagle's nest. But 
the singularity is, how a community of people have con- 
trived to live and perpetuate themselves so far out of the 



1858.] ITALY. 175 

reach of the world's help, and seemingly with no means 
of assisting in the world's labor. I cannot imagine how 
they employ themselves except in begging, and even that 
branch of industry appears to be left to the old women 
and the children. No house was ever built in this im- 
mediate neighborhood for any such natural purpose as 
induces people to build them on other sites. Even our 
hotel, at which we now arrived, could not be said to be a 
natural growth of the soil ; it had originally been a whim 
of one of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, — a hunting-pal- 
ace, — intended for habitation only during a few weeks 
of the year. Of all dreary hotels I ever alighted at, me- 
thinks this is the most so ; but on first arriving I merely 
followed the waiter to look at our rooms, across stone- 
paved basement-halls dismal as Etruscan tombs; up dim 
staircases, and along shivering corridors, all of stone, 
stone, stone, nothing but cold stone. After glancing at 
these pleasant accommodations, my wife and I, with 

J , set out to ascend the hill and visit the town of 

Radicofani. 

It is not more than a quarter of a mile above our 
hotel, and is accessible by a good piece of road, though 
very steep. As we approached the town, we were as- 
sailed by some little beggars ; but this is the case all 
through Italy, in city or solitude, and I think the mendi- 
cants of Radicofani are fewer than its proportion. We 
had not got far towards the village, when, looking back 
over the scene of many miles that lay stretched beneath 
us, we saw a heavy shower apparently travelling straight 
towards us over hill and dale. It seemed inevitable that 
it should soon be upon us, so I persuaded my wife to 

return to the hotel ; but J and I kept onward, being 

determined to see Radicofani with or without a drench- 
ing. We soon entered the street; the blackest, ugliest, 



176 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

rudest old street, I do believe, that ever human life in- 
crusted itself with. The first portion of it is the over- 
brimming of the town in generations subsequent to that 
in which it was surrounded by a wall ; but after going a 
little way we came to a high, square tower planted right 
across the way, with an arched gateway in its basement 
story, so that it looked like a great short-legged giant 
striding over the street of Radicofani. Within the gate- 
way is the proper and original town, though indeed the 
portion outside of the gate is as densely populated, as 
ugly, and as ancient, as that within. 

The street was very narrow, and paved with flag-stones 
not quite so smooth as those of Florence ; the houses are 
tall enough to be stately, if they were not so inconceiv- 
ably dingy and shabby ; but, with their half-dozen stories, 
they make only the impression of hovel piled upon hovel, 
— squalor immortalized in undecaying stone. It was 
now getting far into the twilight, and I could not distin- 
guish the particularities of the little town, except that 
there were shops, a cafe or two, and as many churches, 
all dusky with age, crowded closely together, inconven- 
ient, stifled too, in spite of the breadth and freedom of 
the mountain atmosphere outside the scanty precincts of 
the street. It was a death-in-life little place, a fossilized 
place, and yet the street was thronged, and had all the 
bustle of a city ; even more noise than a city's street, 
because everybody in Radicofani knows everybody, and 
probably gossips with everybody, being everybody's blood 
relation, as they cannot fail to have become after they and 
their forefathers have been shut up together within the 
narrow walls for many hundred years. They looked 

round briskly at J and me, but were courteous, as 

Italians always are, and made way for us to pass through 
the throng, as we kept on still ascending the steep street. 



1858.] ITALY. 177 

It took us but a few minutes to reach the still steeper 
and winding pathway which climbs towards the old 
castle. 

After ascending above the village, the path, though 
still paved, becomes very rough, as if the hoofs of Ghino 
di Tacco's robber cavalry had displaced the stones and 
they had never been readjusted. On every side, too, 
except where the path just finds space enough, there is 
an enormous rubbish of huge stones, which seems to have 
fallen from the precipice above, or else to have rained 
down out of the sky. We kept on, and by and by 
reached what seemed to have been a lower outwork of 
the castle on the top ; there was the massive old arch of 
a gateway, and a great deal of ruin of man's work, beside 
the large stones that here, as elsewhere, were scattered 
so abundantly. Within the wall and gateway just men- 
tioned, however, there was a kind of farm-house, adapted, 
I suppose, out of the old ruin, and I noticed some ears 
of Indian corn hanging out of a window. There were 
also a few staoks of hay, but no signs of human or ani- 
mal life ; and it is utterly inexplicable to me, where these 
products of the soil could have come from, for certainly 
they never grew amid that barrenness. 

We had not yet reached Ghino's castle, and, being 
now beneath it, we had to bend our heads far backward 
to see it rising up against the clear sky while we were 
now in twilight. The path upward looked terribly steep 
and rough, and if we had climbed it we should proba- 
bly have broken our necks in descending again into 
the lower obscurity. We therefore stopped here, much 
against J 's will, and went back as we came, still won- 
dering at the strange situation of Radicofani; for its 
aspect is as if it had stepped off the top of the cliff and 
lodged at its base, though still in danger of sliding far- 
8* l 



178 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

tlier down the hillside. Emerging from the compact, 
grimy life of its street, we saw that the shower had 
swept by, or probably had expended itself in a region 
beneath us, for we were above the scope of many of the 
showery clouds that haunt a hill-country. There was a 
very bright star visible, I remember, and we saw the 
new moon, now a third towards the full, for the first 
time this evening. The air was cold and bracing. 

But I am excessively sleepy, so will not describe our 
great dreary hotel, where a blast howled in an intermi- 
nable corridor all night. It did not seem to have any- 
thing to do with the wind out of doors, but to be a blast 
that had been casually shut in when the doors were 
closed behind the last Grand Duke who came hither and 
departed, and ever since it has been kept prisoner, and 
makes a melancholy wail along the corridor. The dreamy 
stupidity of this conceit proves how sleepy I am. 

SETTE VENE. 

October 15tk. — We left Radicofani long before sun- 
rise, and I saw that ceremony take place from the coupe 
of the vettura for the first time in a long while. A sun- 
set is the better sight of the two. I have always sus- 
pected it, and have been strengthened in the idea when- 
ever I have had an opportunity of comparison. Our 
departure from Radicofani was most dreary, except that 
we were very glad to get away ; but the cold discomfort 
of dressing in a chill bedroom by candlelight, and our 
uncertain wandering through the immense hotel with a 
dim taper in search of the breakfast-room, and our poor 
breakfast of eggs, Italian bread, and coffee, — all these 
things made me wish that people were created with roots 
like trees, so they could not befool themselves with 



1858.] ITALY. 179 

wandering about. However, we had not long been on 
our way before the morning air blew away all our troubles, 
and we rumbled cheerfully onward, ready to encounter 
even the papal custom-house officers at Ponte Centino. 
Our road thither was a pretty steep descent. I remem- 
ber the barren landscape of hills, with here and there a 
lonely farm-house, which there seemed to be no occasion 
for, where nothing grew. 

At Ponte Centino my passport was examined, and I 
was invited into an office where sat the papal custom- 
house officer, a thin, subtle-looking, keen-eyed, sallow 
personage, of aspect very suitable to be the agent of a 
government of priests. I communicated to him my wish 
to pass the custom-house without giving the officers the 
trouble of examining my luggage. He inquired whether 
I had any dutiable articles, and wrote for my signature a 
declaration in the negative ; and then he lifted a sand-box, 
beneath which was a little heap of silver coins. On this 
delicate hint I asked what was the usual fee, and was 
told that fifteen panls was the proper sum. I presume it 
was entirely an illegal charge, and that he had no right to 
pass any luggage without examination ; but the thing is 
winked at by the authorities, and no money is better 
spent for the traveller's convenience than these fifteen 
pauls. There was a papal military officer in t?tie room, 
and he, I believe, cheated me in the change of 'a Napo- 
leon, as his share of the spoil. At the door a soldier met 
me with my passport, and looked as if he expected a fee 
for handing it to me ; but in this he was disappointed. 
After I had resumed my seat in the coupe, the porter of 
the custom-house — a poor, sickly looking creature, half 
dead with the malaria of the place — appeared, and de- 
manded a fee for doing nothing to my luggage. He got 
three pauls, and looked but half contented. This whole 



180 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

set of men seem to be as corrupt as official people can 
possibly be ; and yet I hardly know whether to stigma- 
tize them as corrupt, because it is not their individual de- 
linquency, but the operation of a regular system. Their 
superiors know what men they are, and calculate upon 
their getting a living by just these means. And, indeed, 
the custom-house and passport regulations, as they exist 
in Italy, would be intolerable if there were not this facil- 
ity of evading them at little cost. Such laws are good 
for nothing but to be broken. 

We now began to ascend again, and the country grew 
fertile and picturesque. We passed many mules and 
donkeys, laden with a sort of deep firkin on each side of 
the saddle, and these were heaped up with grapes, both 
purple and white. We bought some, and got what we 
should have thought an abundance at small price, only 
we used to get twice as many at Montanto for the same 
money. However, a Roman paul bought us three or 
four pounds even here. We still ascended, and came 
soon to the gateway of the town of Acquapendente, 
which stands on a height that seems to descend by nat- 
ural terraces to the valley below 

French soldiers, in their bluish-gray coats and scarlet 
trousers, were on duty at the gate, and one of them 
took my passport and the vetturino's, and we then 
drove into the town to wait till they should be vised. 
We saw but one street, narrow, with tall, rusty, aged 
houses, built of stone, evil smelling; in short, a kind of 
place that would be intolerably dismal in cloudy England, 
and cannot be called cheerful even under the sun of 

Italy Priests passed, and burly friars, one of 

whom was carrying a wine-barrel on his head. Little 
carts, laden with firkins of grapes, and donkeys with 
the same genial burden, brushed passed our vettura, 



1858.] ITALY. 181 

finding scarce room enough in the narrow street. All 
the idlers of Acquapendente — and they were many — 
assembled to gaze at us, but not discourteously. In- 
deed, I never saw an idle curiosity exercised in such a 
pleasant way as by the country-people of Italy. It 
almost deserves to be called a kindly interest and sym- 
pathy, instead of a hard and cold curiosity, like that of 
our own people, and it is displayed with such simplicity 
that it is evident no offence is intended. 

By and by the vetturino brought his passport and 
my own, with the official vise, and we kept on our way, 
still ascending, passing through vineyards and olives, 
and meeting grape-laden donkeys, till we came to the 
town of San Lorenzo Nuovo, a place built by Pius VI. 
as the refuge for the people of a lower town which had 
been made uninhabitable by malaria. The new town, 
which I suppose is hundreds of years old, with all its 
novelty shows strikingly the difference between places 
that grow up and shape out their streets of their own 
accord, as it were, and one that is built on a settled 
plan of malice aforethought. This little rural village 
has gates of classic architecture, a spacious piazza, and 
a great breadth of straight and rectangular streets, with 
houses of uniform style, airy and wholesome looking to 
a degree seldom seen on the Continent. Nevertheless, 
I must say that the town looked hatefully dull and ridic- 
ulously prim, and, of the two, I had rather spend my 
life in Radicofani. We drove through it, from gate to 
gate, without stopping, and soon came to the brow of a 
hill, whence we beheld, right beneath us, the beautiful 
lake of Bolsena ; not exactly at our feet, however, for 
a portion of level ground lay between, haunted by the 
pestilence which has depopulated all these shores, and 
made the lake and its neighborhood a solitude. It 



182 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS, [1858. 

looked very beautiful, nevertheless, with a sheen of a 
silver and a gray like that of steel as the wind blew and 
the sun shone over it ; and, judging* by my own feelings, 
I should really have thought that the breeze from its 
surface was bracing and healthy. 

Descending the hill, we passed the ruins of the old 
town of San Lorenzo, of which the prim village on the 
hill-top may be considered the daughter. There is cer- 
tainly no resemblance between parent and child, the 
former being situated on a sort of precipitous bluff, 
where there could have been no room for piazzas and 
spacious streets, nor accessibility except by mules, don- 
keys, goats, and people of Alpine habits. There was an 
ivy-covered tower on the top of the bluff, and some 
arched cavern mouths that looked as if they opened into 
the great darkness. These were the entrances to Etrus- 
can tombs, for the town on top had been originally 
Etruscan, and the inhabitants had buried themselves in 
the heart of the precipitous bluffs after spending their 
lives on its summit. 

Reaching the plain, we drove several miles along the 
shore of the lake, and found the soil fertile and gener- 
ally well cultivated, especially with the vine, though 
there were tracks apparently too marshy to be put 
to any agricultural purpose. We met now and then a 
flock of sheep, watched by sallow-looking and spiritless 
men and boys, who, we took it for granted, would soon 
perish of malaria, though, I presume, they never spend 
their nights in the immediate vicinity of the lake. I 
should like to inquire whether animals suffer from the 
bad qualities of the air. The lake is not nearly so beau- 
tiful on a nearer view as it is from the hill above, there 
being no rocky margin, nor bright, sandy beach, but 
everywhere this interval of level ground, and often 



1858.] ITALY. 183 

swampy marsh, betwixt the water and the hill. At a 
considerable distance from the shore we saw two islands, 
one of which is memorable as having been the scene of 
an empress's murder, but I cannot stop to fill my jour- 
nal with historical reminiscences. 

We kept onward to the town of Bolsena, which stands 
nearly a mile from the lake, and on a site higher than 
the level margin, yet not so much so, I should appre- 
hend, as to free it from danger of malaria. We stopped 
at an albergo outside of the wall of the town, and before 
dinner had time to see a good deal of the neighborhood. 
The first aspect of the town was very striking, with a 
vista into its street through the open gateway, and 
high above it an old, gray, square-built castle, with 
three towers visible at the angles, one of them battle- 
mented, one taller than the rest, and one partially 
ruined. Outside of the town-gate there were some 
fragments of Etruscan ruin, capitals of pillars and altars 
with inscriptions; these we glanced at, and then made 
our entrance through the gate. 

There it was again, — the same narrow, dirty, time- 
darkened street of piled-up houses which we have so 
often seen ; the same swarm of ill-to-do people, grape- 
laden donkeys, little stands or shops of roasted chest- 
nuts, peaches, tomatoes, white and purple figs ; the same 
evidence of a fertile land, and grimy poverty in the 
midst of abundance which nature tries to heap into their 
hands. It seems strange that they can never grasp it. 

We had gone but a little way along this street, when 
we saw a narrow lane that turned aside from it and 
went steeply upward. Its name was on the corner, — 
the Via di Castello, — and as the castle promised to 
be more interesting than anything else, we immediately 
began to ascend. The street — a strange name for such 



184 EEENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

an avenue — clambered upward in the oddest fashion, 
passing under arches, scrambling up steps, so that it 
was more like a long irregular pair of stairs than any- 
thing that Christians call a street ; and so large a part 
of it was under arches that we scarcely seemed to be 

out of doors. At last U , who was in advance, 

emerged into the upper air, and cried out that we had 
ascended to an upper town, and a larger one than that 
beneath. 

It really seemed like coming up out of the earth into 
the midst of the town, when we found ourselves so un- 
expectedly in upper Bolsena. We were in a little nook, 
surrounded by old edifices, and called the Piazza del 
Orologio, on account of a clock that was apparent some- 
where. The castle was close by, and from its platform 
there was a splendid view of the lake and all the near hill- 
country. The castle itself is still in good condition, and 
apparently as strong as ever it was as respects the ex- 
terior walls ; but within there seemed to be neither floor 
nor chamber, nothing but the empty shell of the dateless 
old fortress. The stones at the base and lower part of 
the building were so massive that I should think the 
Etrurians must have laid them ; and then perhaps the 
Romans built a little higher, and the mediaeval people 
raised the battlements and towers. But we did not look 
long at the castle, our attention being drawn to the sin- 
gular aspect of the town itself, which — to speak first of 
its most prominent characteristic — is the very filthiest 
place, I do believe, that was ever inhabited by man. 
.Defilement was everywhere ; in the piazza, in nooks and 
corners, strewing the miserable lanes from side to side, 
the refuse of every day, and of accumulated ages. I 
wonder whether the ancient Romans were as dirty a 
people as we everywhere find those who have succeeded 



1858.] ITALY. 185 

them ; for there seems to have been something in the 
places that have been inhabited by Romans, or made 
famous in their history, and in the monuments of every 
kind that they have raised, that puts people in mind of 
their very earthliness, and incites them to defile therewith 
whatever temple, column, ruined palace, or triumphal 
arch may fall in their way. I think it must be an heredi- 
tary trait, probably weakened and robbed of a little of its 
horror by the influence of milder ages ; and I am much 
afraid that Caesar trod narrower and fouler ways in his 
path to power than those of modern Rome, or even of 
this disgusting town of Bolsena. I cannot imagine any- 
thing worse than these, however. Rotten vegetables 
thrown everywhere about, musty straw, standing puddles, 
running rivulets of dissolved nastiness, — these matters 
were a relief amid viler objects. The town was full of 
great black hogs wallowing before every door, and they 
grunted at us with a kind of courtesy and affability as if 
the town were theirs, and it was their part to be hospita- 
ble to strangers. Many donkeys likewise accosted us 
with braying ; children, growing more uncleanly every day 
they lived, pestered us with begging ; men stared askance 
at us as they lounged in corners, and women endangered 
us with slops which they were flinging from doorways 
into the street. No decent words can describe, no ad- 
missible image can give an idea of this noisome place. 
And yet, I remember, the donkeys came up the height 
loaded with fruit, and with little flat-sided barrels of 
wine ; the people had a good atmosphere — except as 
they polluted it themselves — on their high site, and there 
seemed to be no reason why they should not live a beauti- 
ful and jolly life. 

I did not mean to write such an ugly description as 
the above, but it is well, once for all, to have attempted 



186 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

conveying an idea of what disgusts the traveller, more 
or less, in all these Italian towns. Setting aside this 
grand characteristic, the upper town of Bolsena is a 
most curious and interesting place. It was originally an 
Etruscan city, the ancient Volsinii, and when taken and 
destroyed by the Romans was said to contain two thou- 
sand statues. Afterwards the Romans built a town upon 
the site, including, I suppose, the space occupied by the 
lower city, which looks as if it had brimmed over like 
Radicofani, and fallen from the precipitous height occu- 
pied by the upper. The latter is a strange confusion of 
black and ugly houses, piled massively out of the ruins 
of former ages, built rudely and without plan, as a pau- 
per would build his hovel, and yet with here and Inhere 
an arched gateway, a cornice, a pillar, that might have 

adorned a palace The streets are the narrowest 

I have seen anywhere, — of no more width, indeed, than 
may suffice for the passage of a donkey with his pan- 
niers. They wind in and out in strange confusion, and 
hardly look like streets at all, but, nevertheless, have 
names printed on the corners, just as if they were stately 
avenues. After looking about us awhile and drawing 
half-breaths so as to take in the less quantity of gaseous 
pollution, we went back to the castle, and descended by 
a path winding downward from it into the plain outside 
of the town-gate. 

It was now dinner-time, .... and we had, in the 
first place, some fish from the pestiferous lake ; not, I 
am sorry to say, the famous stewed eels which, Dante 

says, killed Pope Martin, but some trout By the 

by, the meal was not dinner, but our midday colazione. 
After despatching it, we again wandered forth and strolled 
round the outside of the lower town, which, with the 
upper one, made as picturesque a combination as could 



1858.] ITALY. 187 

be desired. The old wall that surrounds the lower town 
has been appropriated, long since, as the back wall of 
a range of houses; windows have been pierced through 
it ; upper chambers and loggie have been built upon it ; 
so that it looks something like a long row of rural dwell- 
ings with one continuous front or back, constructed in 
a strange style of massive strength, contrasting with the 
vines that here and there are trained over it, and with 
the wreaths of yellow corn that hang from the windows. 
But portions of the old battlements are interspersed with 
the line of homely chambers and tiled house-tops. With- 
in the wall the town is very compact, and above its roofs 
rises a rock, the sheer, precipitous bluff on which stands 
the upper town, whose foundations impend over the high- 
est roof in the lower. At one end is the old castle, with 
its towers rising above the square battlemented mass of 
the main fortress ; and if we had not seen the dirt and 
squalor that dwells within this venerable outside, we 
should have carried away a picture of gray, grim dignity, 
presented by a long past age to the present one, to put 

its mean ways and modes to shame. sat diligently 

sketching, and children came about her, exceedingly un- 
fragrant, but very courteous and gentle, looking over her 
shoulders, and expressing delight as they saw each famil- 
iar edifice take its place in the sketch. They are a lov- 
able people, these Italians, as I find from almost all with 
whom we come in contact; they have great and little 
faults, and no great virtues that I know of ; but still are 
sweet, amiable, pleasant to encounter, save when they 
beg, or when you have to bargain with them. 

We left Bolsena and drove to Viterbo, passing the 
gate of the picturesque town of Montefiascone, over the 
wall of which I saw spires and towers, and the dome of a 
cathedral. I was sorry not to taste, in its own town, the 



188 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

celebrated est, which was the death-draught of the jolly 
prelate. At Yiterbo, however, I called for some wine 
of Montefiascone, and had a little straw-covered flask, 
which the waiter assured us was the genuine est-wine. 
It was of golden color, and very delicate, somewhat 
resembling still champagne, but finer, and requiring a 
calmer pause to appreciate its subtle delight. Its good 
qualities, however, are so evanescent, that the finer fla- 
vor became almost imperceptible before we finished the 
flask. 

Viterbo is a large, disagreeable town, built at the foot 
of a mountain, the peak of which is seen through the vista 
of some of the narrow streets 

There are more fountains in Yiterbo than I have seen 
in any other city of its size, and many of them of very 
good design. Around most of them there were wine- 
hogsheads, waiting their turn to be cleansed and rinsed, 
before receiving the wine of the present vintage. Pass- 
ing a doorway, J saw some men treading out the 

grapes in a great vat with their naked feet 

Among the beggars here, the loudest and most vocif- 
erous was a crippled postilion, wearing his uniform 
jacket, green, faced with red ; and he seemed to consider 
himself entitled still to get his living from travellers, as 
having been disabled in the way of his profession. I 
recognized his claim, and was rewarded with a courteous 

and grateful bow at our departure To beggars — 

after my much experience both in England and Italy — 
I give very little, though I am not certain that it would 
not often be real beneficence in the latter country. 
There being little or no provision for poverty and age, 
the poor must often suffer. Nothing can be more earnest 
than their entreaties for aid; nothing seemingly more 
genuine than their gratitude when they receive it. 



1858.] ITALY. 189 

They return you the value of their alms in prayers, 
and say, "God will accompany you." Many of them 
have a professional whine, and a certain doleful twist 
of the neck and turn of the head, which hardens my 
heart against them at once. A painter might find 
numerous models among them, if canvas had not already 
been more than sufficiently covered with their style of 
the picturesque. There is a certain brick-dust colored 
cloak worn in Viterbo, not exclusively by beggars, which, 
when ragged enough, is exceedingly artistic. 

ROME. 

68 Piazza Poll, October 17th. — We left Viterbo on 
the 15th, and proceeded, through Monterosi, to Sette 
Vene. There was nothing interesting at Sette Vene, 
except an old Roman bridge, of a single arch, which had 
kept its sweep, composed of one row of stones, unbroken 
for two or more thousand years, and looked just as strong 
as ever, though gray with age, and fringed with plants 
that found it hard to fix themselves m its close crevices. 

The next day we drove along the Cassian Way towards 
Rome. It was a most delightful morning, a genial at- 
mosphere ; the more so, I suppose, because this was the 
Campagna, the region of pestilence and death. I had a 
quiet, gentle, comfortable pleasure, as if, after many 
wanderings, I was drawing near Rome, for, now that I 
have known it once, Rome certainly does draw into itself 
my heart, as I think even London, or even little Concord 
itself, or old sleepy Salem, never did and never will. 
Besides, we are to stay here six months, and we had now 
a house all prepared to receive us ; so that this present 
approach, in the noontide of a genial day, was most un- 
like our first one, when we crept towards Rome through 



190 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

the wintry midnight, benumbed with cold, ill, weary, and 
not knowing whither to betake ourselves. Ah ! that was 
a dismal time ! One thing, however, that disturbed even 
my present equanimity a little was the necessity of meet- 
ing the custom-house at the Porta del Popolo ; but my 
past experience warranted me in believing that even 
these ogres might be mollified by the magic touch of a 
scudo ; and so it proved. We should have escaped any 
examination at all, the officer whispered me, if his supe- 
rior had not happened to be present; but, as the case 
stood, they took down only one trunk from the top of the 
vettura, just lifted the lid, closed it again, and gave us 
permission to proceed. So we came to 68 Piazza Poli, 
and found ourselves at once at home, in such a com- 
fortable, cosey little house, as I did not think existed in 
Rome. 

I ought to say a word about our vetturino, Constan- 
tino Bacci, an excellent and most favorable specimen of 
his class ; for his magnificent conduct, his liberality, and 

all the good qualities that ought to be imperial, S 

called him the Emperor. He took us to good hotels, 
and feasted us with the best ; he was kind to us all, and 
especially to little Rosebud, who used to run by his side, 
with her small white hand in his great brown one ; he 
was cheerful in his deportment, and expressed his good 
spirits by the smack of his whip, which is the barometer 
of a vetturino's inward weather; he drove admirably, 
and would rumble up to the door of an albergo, and stop 
to a hair's -breadth just where it was most convenient for 
us to alight ; he would hire postilions and horses, where 
other vetturini would take nothing better than sluggish 
oxen, to help us up the hilly roads, so that sometimes 
we had a team of seven ; he did all that we could pos- 
sibly require of him, and was content and more, with a 



1858.] ITALY. 191 

buon memo of five scudi, in addition to the stipulated 
price. Finally, I think the tears had risen almost to his 
eyelids when we parted with him. 

Our friends, the Thompsons, through whose kindness 
we procured this house, called to see us soon after our 
arrival. In the afternoon, I walked with Rosebud to 
the Medici Gardens, and on our way thither, we espied 
our former servant, Lalla, who flung so many and such 
bitter curses after us, on our departure from Rome, 
sitting at her father's fruit-stall. Thank God, they have 
not taken effect. After going to the Medici, we went 
to the Pincian Gardens, and looked over into the Bor- 
ghese grounds, which, methought, were more beautiful 
than ever. The same was true of the sky, and of every 
object beneath it ; and as we came homeward along the 
Corso, I wondered at the stateliness and palatial mag- 
nificence of that noble street. Once, I remember, I 
thought it narrow, and far unworthy of its fame. 

In the way of costume, the men in goat-skin breeches, 
whom we met on the Campagna, were very strikiug, and 
looked like Satyrs. 

October 2Jst. — . . . . I have been twice to St. Pe- 
ter's, and was impressed more than at any former visit by 
a sense of breadth and loftiness, and, as it were, a vis- 
ionary splendor and magnificence. I also went to the 
Museum of the Capitol ; and the statues seemed to me 
more beautiful than formerly, and I was not sensible of 
the cold despondency with which I have so often viewed 
them. Yesterday we went to the Corsini Palace, which 
we had not visited before. It stands in the Trastevere, 
in the Longara, and is a stately palace, with a grand 
staircase, leading to the first floor, where is situated the 
range of picture-rooms. There were a good many fine 



192 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

pictures, but none of them have made a memorable im- 
pression on my mind, except a portrait by Vandyke, of 
a man in point-lace, very grand and very real. The 
room in which this picture hung had many other por- 
traits by Holbein, Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, and other 
famous painters, and was wonderfully rich in this de- 
partment. In another, there was a portrait of Pope 
Julius II., by Raphael, somewhat differing from those 
at the Pitti and the Uffizi galleries in Florence, and 
those I have seen in England and Paris ; thinner, paler, 
perhaps older, more severely intellectual, but at least, as 
high a work of art as those. 

The palace has some handsome old furniture, and 
gilded chairs, covered with leather cases, possibly relics 
of Queen Christina's time, who died here. I know not 
but the most curious object was a curule chair of mar- 
ble, sculptured all out of one piece, and adorned with 
bas-reliefs. It is supposed to be Etruscan. It has a 
circular back, sweeping round, so as to afford sufficient 
rests for the elbows ; and, sitting down in it, I dis- 
covered that modern ingenuity has not made much real 
improvement on this chair of three or four thousand 
years ago. But some chairs are easier for the moment, 
yet soon betray you, and grow the more irksome. 

We strolled along Longara, and found the piazza of 

St. Peter's full of Erench soldiers at their drill 

We went quite round the interior of the church, and 
perceiving the pavement loose and broken near the altar 
where Guido's Archangel is placed, we picked up some 
bits of rosso antico and gray marble, to be set in 
brooches, as relics. 

We have the snuggest little set of apartments in Rome, 
seven rooms, including an antechamber ; and though the 
stairs are exceedingly narrow, there is really a carpet on 



1858.] ITALY. 193 

them, — a civilized comfort, of which the proudest pal- 
aces in the Eternal City cannot boast. The stairs are 
very steep, however, and I should not wonder if some of 
us broke our noses down them. Narrowness of space 
within doors strikes us all rather ludicrously, yet not un- 
pleasantly, after being accustomed to the wastes and des- 
erts of the Montanto Villa. It is well thus to be put in 
training for the over-snuguess of our cottage in Concord. 
Our windows here look out on a small and rather quiet 
piazza, with an immense palace on the left hand, and a 
smaller yet statelier one on the right, and just round 
the corner of the street, leading out of our piazza, is the 
Fountain of Trevi, of which I can hear the plash in the 
evening, when other sounds are hushed. 

Looking over what I have said of Sodoma's " Christ 
Bound," at Siena, I see that I have omitted to notice 
what seems to me one of its most striking characteristics, 
— its loneliness. You feel as if the Saviour were de- 
serted^both in heaven and earth ; the despair is in him 
which made him say, " My God, why hast thou forsaken 
me ? " Even in this extremity, however, he is still Di- 
vine, and Sodoma almost seems to have reconciled the 
impossibilities of combining an omnipresent divinity with 
a suffering and outraged humanity. But this is one of 
the cases in which the spectator's imagination completes 
what the artist merely hints at. 

Mr. , the sculptor, called to see us, the other even- 
ing, and quite paid Powers off for all his trenchant criti- 
cisms on his brother artists. He will not allow Powers to 
be an artist at all, or to know anything of the laws of art, 
although acknowledging him to be a great bust-maker, 
and to have put together the Greek Slave and the Fisher- 
Boy very ingeniously. The latter, however (he says), is 
copied from the Apolliuo in the Tribune of the Uffizi ; 

VOL. II. 9 M 



194 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

and the former is made up of beauties that had no refer- 
ence to one another ; and he affirms that Powers is ready 
to sell, and has actually sold, the Greek Slave, limb by 
limb, dismembering it by reversing' the process of put- 
ting it together, — a head to one purchaser, an arm or a 
foot to another, a hand to a third. Powers knows noth- 
ing scientifically of the human frame, and only succeeds 
in representing it as a natural bone-doctor succeeds in 
setting a dislocated limb by a happy accident or special 
providence. (The illustration was my own, and adopted 

by Mr. .) Yet Mr. seems to acknowledge 

that he did succeed. I repeat these things only as 
another instance how invariably every sculptor uses his 
chisel and mallet to smash and deface the marble-work of 

every other. I never heard Powers speak of Mr. , 

but can partly imagine what he would have said. 

Mr. spoke of Powers's disappointment about the 

twenty-five-thousand-dollar appropriation from Congress, 
and said that he was altogether to blame, inasmuch as he 
attempted to sell to the nation for that sum a statue 

which, to Mr. ? s certain knowledge, he had already 

offered to private persons for a fifth part of it. I have 

not implicit faith in Mr. 's veracity, and doubt not 

Powers acted fairly in his own eyes. 

October 2%d. — I am afraid I have caught one of the 
colds which the Roman air continually affected me with 
last winter; at any rate, a sirocco has taken the life out 
of me, and I have no spirit to do anything. This morn- 
ing I took a walk, however, out of the Porta Maggiore, 
and looked at the tomb of the baker Eurvsaces, just 
outside of the gate, — a very singular ruin covered with 
symbols of the man's trade in stoue-work, aud with bas- 
reliefs along the cornice, representing people at work, 



1858.^ ITALY. 195 

making bread. An inscription states that the ashes of 
his wife are likewise repositecl there, in a bread-basket. 
The mausoleum is perhaps twenty feet long, in its iargest 
extent, and of equal height ; and if good bakers were as 
scarce in ancient Rome as in the modem city, I do not 
wonder that they were thought worthy of stately monu- 
ments. None of the modern ones deserve any better 
tomb than a pile of their own sour loaves. 

I walked onward a good distance beyond the gate 
alongside of the arches of the Claudian aqueduct, which, 
in this portion of it, seems to have had little repair, and 
to have needed little, since it was built. It looks like a 
long procession, striding across the Campagna towards 
the city, and entering the gate, over one of its arches, 
within the gate, I saw two or three slender jets of water 
spurting from tlie crevices ; this aqueduct being still in 
use to bring the Acqua Felice into Rome. 

Returning within the walls, I walked along their inner 
base, to the Church of St. John Lateran, into which I 
went, and sat down to rest myself, being languid and 
weary, and hot with the sun, though afraid to trust the 
coolness of the shade. I hate the Roman atmosphere ; 
indeed, all my pleasure in getting back — all my home- 
feeling — has already evaporated, and what now impresses 
me, as before, is the languor of Rome, — its weary pave- 
ments, its little life, pressed down by a weight of death. 

Quitting St. John Lateran, I went astray, as I do nine 
times out of ten in these Roman intricacies, and at last, 
seeing the Coliseum in the vista of a street, I betook 
myself thither to get a fresh start. Its round of stones 
looked vast and dreary, but not particularly impressive. 
The interior was quite deserted ; except that a Roman, 
of respectable appearance, was making a pilgrimage at 
the altars, kneeling and saying a prayer at each one. 



196 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1858. 

Outside of the Coliseum, a neat-looking little boy came 
and begged of me ; and I gave him a baiocco, rather 
because he seemed to need it so little than for any other 
reason. I observed that he immediately afterwards went 
and spoke to a well-dressed man, and supposed that the 
child was likewise begging of him. I watched the little 
boy, however, and saw that, in two or three other in- 
stances, after begging of other individuals, he still re- 
turned to this well-dressed man; the fact being, no doubt, . 
that the latter was fishing for baiocci through the me- 
dium of his child, — throwing the poor little fellow out 
as a bait, while he himself retained his independent re- 
spectability. He had probably come out for a whole 
day's sport ; for, by and by, he went between the arches 
of the Coliseum, followed by the child, and taking with 
him what looked like a bottle of wine, wrapped in a 
handkerchief. 

November 2d. — The weather lately would have suited 
one's ideal of an English November, except that there 
have been no fogs; but of ugly, hopeless clouds, chill, 
shivering winds, drizzle, and now and then pouring rain, 
much more than enough. An English coal-fire, if we 
could see its honest face within doors, would compensate 
for all the unamiableness of the outside atmosphere ; but 
we might ask for the sunshine of the New Jerusalem, 
with as much hope of getting it. It is extremely spirit- 
crushing, this remorseless gray, with its icy heart ; and 

the more to depress the whole family, U has taken 

what seems to be the Roman fever, by sitting down in 

the Palace of the Caesars, while Mrs. S sketched 

the ruins 

[During four months of the illness of his daughter, 
Mr. Hawthorne wrote no word of Journal. — Ed.] 



1859.J ITALY. 197 

February 27th, 1859. — For many days past, there have 
been tokens of the coming Carnival in the Corso and the 
adjacent streets ; for example, in the shops, by the dis- 
play of masks of wire, pasteboard, silk, or cloth, some of 
beautiful features, others hideous, fantastic, currish, asi- 
nine, huge-nosed, or otherwise monstrous ; some intended 
to cover the whole face, others concealing only the upper 
part, also white dominos, or robes bedizened with gold- 
lace and theatric splendors, displayed at the windows of 

mercers or flaunting before the doors. Yesterday, U 

and I came along the Corso, between one and two o'clock, 
after a walk, and found all these symptoms of impending 
merriment multiplied and intensified ; . . . . rows of chairs, 
set out along the sidewalks, elevated a foot or two by 
means of planks ; great baskets, full of confetti, for sale 
in the nooks and recesses of the streets ; bouquets of all 
qualities and prices. The Corso was becoming pretly 
well thronged with people ; but, until two o'clock, no- 
body dared to fling as much as a rosebud or a handful 
of sugar-plums. There was a sort of holiday expression, 
however, on almost everybody's face, such as I have not 
hitherto seen in Home, or in any part of Italy ; a smile 
gleaming out, an aurora of mirth, which probably will 
not be very exuberant in its noontide. The day was so 
sunny and bright that it made this opening scene far 
more cheerful than any day of the last year's carnival. 

As we threaded our way through the Corso, U 

kept wishing she could plunge into the fun and uproar 
as J would, and for my own part, though I pretend- 
ed to take no interest in the matter, I could have bandied 
confetti and nosegays as readily and as riotously as any 
urchin there. But my black hat and grave talma would 
have been too good a mark for the combatants, .... 
so we went home before a shot was fired 



198 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

March 1th. — I, as well as the rest of the family, 
have followed up the Carnival pretty faithfully, and en- 
joyed it as well, or rather better than could have been 
expected ; principally in the street, as a mere looker-on, 

— which does not let one into the mystery of the fun, 

— and twice from a balcony, where I threw confetti, 
and partly understood why the young people like it so 
much. Certainly, there cannot well be a more pictu- 
resque spectacle in human life, than that stately, palatial 
avenue of the Corso, the more picturesque because so 
narrow, all hung with carpets and Gobelin tapestry, and 
the whole palace-heights alive with faces ; and all the 
capacity of the street thronged with the most fantastic 
figures that either the fancies of folks alive at this day 
are able to contrive, or that live traditionaEy from year 
to year The Prince of Wales has fought man- 
fully through the Carnival with confetti and bouquets, 
and U received several bouquets from him, on Sat- 
urday, as her carriage moved along. 

March Sth. — I went with U to Mr. Motley's 

balcony, in the Corso, and saw the Carnival from it 
yesterday afternoon ; but the spectacle is strangely like 
a dream, in respect to the difficulty of retaining it in 
the mind and solidifying it into a description. I en- 
joyed it a good deal, and assisted in so far as to pelt all 
the people in cylinder hats with handfuls of confetti. 
The scene opens with a long array of cavalry, who ride 
through the Corso, preceded by a large band, playing 

loudly on their brazen instruments There were 

some splendid dresses, particularly contadina costumes 
of scarlet and gold, which seem to be actually the festal 
attire of that class of people, and must needs be so ex- 
pensive that one must serve for a lifetime, if indeed it 
be not an inheritance 



1859.] ITALY. 199 

March $tk. — I was, yesterday, an hour or so among 
the people ou the sidewalks of the Corso, just ou the 
edges of the fun. They appeared to be in a decorous, 
good-natured mood, neither entering into the merriment, 
nor harshly repelling ; aiTd when groups of maskers over- 
flowed among them, they received their jokes in good 
part. Many women of the lower class were in the crowd 
of bystanders ; generally broad and sturdy figures, clad 
evidently in their best attire, and wearing a good many 
ornaments; such as gold or coral beads and necklaces, 
combs of silver or gold, heavy ear-rings, curiously 
wrought brooches, perhaps cameos or mosaics, though 
I think they prefer purely metallic work to these. One 
ornament very common among them is a large bodkin, 
which they stick through their hair. It is usually of 
silver, but sometimes it looks like steel, and is made 
in the shape of a sword, — a long Spanish thrusting- 
sword, for example. Dr. Eranco told us a story of a 
woman of Trastevere, who was addressed rudely at the 
Carnival by a gentleman ; she warned him to desist, but 
as he still persisted, she drew the bodkin from her hair, 
and stabbed him to the heart. 

By and by I went to Mr. Motley's balcony, and 
looked down on the closing scenes of the Carnival. 
Methought the merry-makers labored harder to be 
mirthful, and yet were somewhat tired of their eight 
play-days; and their dresses looked a little shabby, 
rumpled, and draggled; but the lack of sunshine — 
which we have had on all the preceding days — may 
have produced this effect. The wheels of some of the 
carriages were wreathed round and spoked with green 
foliage, making a very pretty and fanciful appearance, 
as did likewise the harnesses of the horses, which were 
trimmed with roses. The pervading noise and uproar 



200 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

of human voices is one of the most effective points of 
the matter; but the scene is quite indescribable, and 
its effect not to be conceived without both witnessing 
and taking part in it. If you merely look at it, it de- 
presses you ; if you take even the slightest share in it, 
you become aware that it has a fascination, and you 
no longer wonder that the young people, at least, take 
such delight in plunging into this mad river of fun that 
goes roaring between the narrow limits of the Corso. 

As twilight came on, the moccoli commenced, and as 
it grew darker the whole street twinkled with lights, 
which would have been innumerable if every torch-bearer 
had not been surrounded by a host of enemies, who tried 
to extinguish his poor little twinkle. It was a pity to 
lose so much splendor as there might have been; but 
yet there was a kind of symbolism in the thought that 
every one of those thousands of twinkling lights was 
in charge of somebody, who was striving with all his 
might to keep it alive. Not merely the street-way, but 
all the balconies and hundreds of windows were lit up 
with these little torches ; so that it seemed as if the stars 
had crumbled into glittering fragments, and rained down 
upon the Corso, some of them lodging upon the palace- 
fronts, some falling on the ground. Besides this, there 
were gas-lights burning with a white flame; but this 
illumination was not half so interesting as that of the 
torches, which indicated human struggle. All this time 
there were myriad voices shouting, " Senza moccolo ! *' 
and mingling into one long roar. We, in our balcony, 
carried on a civil war against one another's torches, 
as is the custom of human beings, within even the nar- 
rowest precincts ; but after a while we grew tired, and 
so did the crowd, apparently ; for the lights vanished, 
one after another, till the gas-lights — which at first were 



1859.] ITALY. 201 

an unimportant part of the illumination — shone quietly 
out, overpowering the scattered twinkles of the moccoli. 
They were what the fixed stars are to the transitory 
splendors of human life. 

Mr. Motley tells me, that it was formerly the custom 
to have a mock funeral of Harlequin, who was supposed 
to die at the close of the Carnival, during which he had 
reigned supreme, and all the people, or as many as chose, 
bore torches at his burial. But this being considered an 
indecorous mockery of Popish funereal customs, the pres- 
ent frolic of the moccoli was instituted, — in some sort, 
growing out of it. 

All last night, or as much of it as I was awake, there 
was a noise of song and of late revellers in the streets ; 
but to-day we have waked up in the sad and sober season 
of Lent. 

It is worthy of remark, that all the jollity of the Carni- 
val is a genuine ebullition of spirit, without the aid of 
wine or strong drink. 

March W.th. — Yesterday we went to the Catacomb of 
St. Calixtus, the entrance to which is alongside of the 
Appian Way, within sight of the tomb of Cecilia Metella. 
We descended not a very great way under ground, by a 
broad flight of stone steps, and, lighting some wax ta- 
pers, with which we had provided ourselves, we followed 
the guide through a great many intricate passages, which 
mostly were just wide enough for me to touch the wall 
on each side, while keeping my elbows close to my body ; 
and as to height, they were from seven to ten feet, and 
sometimes a good deal higher It was rather pic- 
turesque, when we saw the long line of our tapers, for 
another large party had joined us, twinkling along the 
dark passage, and it was interesting to think of the 
9* 



202 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

former inhabitants of these caverns In one or 

two places there was the round mark in the stone or 
plaster, where a bottle had been deposited. This was 
said to have been the token of a martyr's burial-place, 
and to have contained his blood. After leaving the Cat- 
acomb, we drove onward to Cecilia Metella's tomb, which 
we entered and inspected. Within the immensely mas- 
sive circular substance of the tomb was a round, vacant 
space, and this interior vacancy was open at the top, and 
had nothing but some fallen stones and a heap of earth at 
the bottom. 

On our way home we entered the Church of " Domine, 
quo vadis," and looked at the old fragment of the Appian 
Way, where our Saviour met St. Peter, and left the im- 
pression of his feet in one of the Roman paving-stones. 
The stone has been removed, and there is now only a fac- 
simile engraved in a block of marble, occupying the place 
where Jesus stood. It is a great pity they had not left 
the original stone ; for then all its brother-stones in the 
pavement would have seemed to confirm the truth of the 
legend. 

While we were at dinner, a gentleman called and was 
shown into the parlor. We supposed it to be Mr. May ; 
but soon his voice grew familiar, and my wife was sure 
it was General Pierce, so I left the table, and found it to 
be really he. I was rejoiced to see him, though a little 
saddened to see the marks of care and coming age, in 
many a whitening hair, and many a furrow, and, still 
more, in something that seemed to have passed away out 
of him, without leaving any trace. His voice, sometimes, 
sounded strange and old, though generally it was what it 
used to be. He was evidently glad to see me, glad to 
see my wife, glad to see the children, though there was 
something melancholy in his tone, when he remarked 



1859.] ITALY. 203 

what a stout boy J had grown. Poor fellow ! he 

has neither son nor daughter to keep his heart warm. 
This morning I have been with him to St. Peter's, and 
elsewhere about the city, and find him less changed than 
he seemed to be last night ; not at all changed in heart 
and affections. We talked freely about all matters that 
came up ; among the rest, about the project — recogniza- 
ble by many tokens — for bringing him again forward as 
a candidate for the Presidency next year. He appears 
to be firmly resolved not again to present himself to the 
country, and is content to let his one administration 
stand, and to be judged by the public and posterity on 
the merits of that. No doubt he is perfectly sincere ; no 
doubt, too, he would again be a candidate, if a pretty 
unanimous voice of the party should demand it. I retain 
all my faith in his administrative faculty, and should be 
glad, for his sake, to have it fully recognized ; but the 
probabilities, as far as I can see, do not indicate for him 
another Presidential term. 

March 15tk. — This morning I went with my wife and 
Miss Hoar to Miss Hosmer's studio, to see her statue of 
Zenobia. We found her in her premises, springing about 
with a bird-like action. She has a lofty room, with a 
skylight window ; it was pretty well warmed with a 
stove, and there was a small orange -tree in a pot, with 
the oranges growing on it, and two or three flower- 
shrubs in bloom. She herself looked prettily, with her 
jaunty little velvet cap on the side of her head, whence 
came clustering out her short brown curls ; her face full 
of pleasant life and quick expression ; and though some- 
what worn with thought and struggle, handsome and 
spirited. She told us that "her wig was growing as 
gray as a rat." 



204 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

There were but very few things in the room ; two or 
three plaster busts, a headless cast of a plaster statue, 
and a cast of the Minerva Medica, which perhaps she 
had been studying as a help towards the design of her 
Zenobia ; for, at any rate, I seemed to discern a resem- 
blance or analogy between the two. Zenobia stood in 
the centre of the room, as yet unfinished in the clay, but 
a very noble and remarkable statue indeed, full of dignity 
and beauty. It is wonderful that so brisk a woman could 
have achieved a work so quietly impressive ; and there is 
something in Zenobia's air that conveys the idea of mu- 
sic, uproar, and a great throng all about her ; whilst she 
walks in the midst of it, self-sustained, and kept in a sort 
of sanctity by her native pride. The idea of motion is 
attained with great success ; you not only perceive that 
she is walking, but know at just what tranquil pace she 
steps, amid the music of the triumph. The drapery is 
very fine and full ; she is decked with ornaments ; but 
the chains of her captivity hang from wrist to wrist ; 
and her deportment — indicating a soul so much above 
her misfortune, yet not insensible to the weight of it — 
makes these chains a richer decoration than all her other 
jewels. I know not whether there be some magic in the 
present imperfect finish of the statue, or in the material 
of clay, as being a better medium of expression than 
even marble ; but certainly I have seldom been more im- 
pressed by a piece of modern sculpture. Miss Hosraer 
showed us photographs of 'her Puck — which I have 
seen in the marble — and likewise of the Will-o'-the- 
Wisp, both very pretty and fanciful. It indicates much 
variety of power, that Zenobia should be the sister of 
these, which would seem the more natural offspring of 
her quick and vivid character. But Zenobia is a high, 
heroic ode. 



1859.] ITALY. 205 

.... On my "way up the Yia Babuino, 1 met General 
Pierce. We have taken two or three walks together, 
and stray among the Roman ruins, and old scenes of his- 
tory, talking of matters in which he is personally con- 
cerned, yet which are as historic as anything around us. 
He is singularly little changed ; the more I see him, the 
more I get him back, just such as he was in our youth. 
This morning, his face, air, and smile were so wonderfully 
like himself of old, that at least thirty years are annihi- 
lated. 

Zenobia's manacles serve as bracelets; a very ingen- 
ious and suggestive idea. 

March 18M. — I went to the sculpture-gallery of the 
Capitol yesterday, and saw, among other things, the 
Venus in her secret cabinet. This was my second view 
of her : the first time, I greatly admired her ; now, she 
made no very favorable impression. There are twenty 
Venuses whom I like as well, or better. On the whole, 
she is a heavy, clumsy, unintellectual, and commonplace 
figure ; at all events, not in good looks to-day. Marble 
beauties seem to suffer the same occasional eclipses as 
those of flesh and blood. We looked at the Faun, the 
Dying Gladiator, and other famous sculptures ; but noth- 
ing had a glory round it, perhaps because the sirocco was 
blowing. These halls of the Capitol have always had a 
dreary and depressing effect upon me, very different from 
those of the Vatican. I know not why, except that the 
rooms of the Capitol have a dingy, shabby, and neglected 
look, and that the statues are dusty, and all the arrange- 
ments less magnificent than at the Vatican. The cor- 
roded and discolored surfaces of the statues take away 
from the impression of immortal youth, and turn Apollo* 

* The Lycian Apollo. 



206 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

himself into an old stone ; unless at rare intervals, when 
lie appears transfigured by a light gleaming from within. 

March %?>d. — I am wearing away listlessly these last 

precious days of my abode in Rome. U 's illness is 

disheartening, and by confining , it takes away the 

energy and enterprise that were the spring of all our 
movements. I am weary of Home, without having seen 
nnd known it as I ought, and I shall be glad to get away 
from it, though no doubt there will be many yearnings to 
return hereafter, and many regrets that I did not make 
better use of the opportunities within my grasp. Still, I 
have been in Rome long enough to be imbued with its 
atmosphere, and this is the essential condition of know- 
ing a place ; for such knowledge does not consist in 
having seen every particular object it contains. In the 
state of mind in which I now stand towards Rome, there 
is very little advantage to be gained by staying here 
longer. 

And yet I had a pleasant stroll enough yesterday after- 
noon, all by myself, from the Corso down past the Church 
of St. Andrea della Valle, — the site where Caesar was 
murdered, — and thence to the Farnese Palace, the noble 
court of which I entered; thence to the Piazza Cenci, 
where I looked at one or two ugly old palaces, and fixed 
on one of them as the residence of Beatrice's father ; then 
4>ast the Temple of Vesta, and skirting along the Tiber, 
and beneath the Aventine, till I somewhat unexpectedly 
came in sight of the gray pyramid of Caius Cestius. I 
went out of the city gate, and leaned on the parapet that 
encloses the pyramid, advancing its high, unbroken slope 
and peak, where the great blocks of marble still fit almost 
as closely to one another as when they were first laid ; 
though, indeed, there are crevices just large enough for 



1859.] ITALY. 207 

plants to root themselves, and flaunt and trail over the 
face of this great tomb ; only a little verdure, however, 
over a vast space of marble, still white in spots, but per- 
vadingly turned gray by two thousand years' action of 
1Ue atmosphere. Thence I came home by the Ccelian, 
and sat down on an ancient flight of steps under one of 
the arches of the Coliseum, into which the sunshine fell 
sidelong. It was a delightful afternoon, not precisely 
like any weather that I have known elsewhere ; certainly 
never in America, where it is always too cold or too hot. 
It resembles summer more than anything which we New- 
En glanders recognize in our idea of spring, but there was 
an indescribable something, sweet, fresh, gentle, that does 
not belong to summer, and that thrilled and tickled my 
heart with a feeling partly sensuous, partly spiritual. 

I go to the Bank and read Gulignani and the Ameri- 
can newspapers ; thence I stroll to the Pincian or to 
the Medici Gardens; I see a good deal of General 
Pierce, and we talk over his Presidential life, which, I 
now really think, he has no latent desire nor purpose to 
renew. Yet he seems to have enjoyed it while it lasted, 
and certainly he was in his element as an administrative 
man; not far-seeing, not possessed of vast stores of 
political wisdom in advance of his occasions, but en- 
dowed with a miraculous intuition of what ought to be 
done just at the time for action. His judgment of 
things about him is wonderful, and his Cabinet recog- 
nized it as such; for though they were men of great 
ability, he was evidently the master-mind among them. 
None of them were particularly his personal friends 
when he selected them ; they all loved him when they 
parted; and he showed me a letter, signed by all, i» 
which they expressed their feelings of respect and at- 
tachment at the close of his administration. There was 



208 PEENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

a noble frankness on his part, that kept the atmosphere 
always clear among them, and in reference to this char- 
acteristic Governor Marcy told him that the years dur- 
ing which he had been connected with his Cabinet had 
been the happiest of his life. Speaking of Caleb dish- 
ing, he told me that the unreliability, the fickleness, 
which is usually attributed to him, is an actual charac- 
teristic, but that it is intellectual, not moral. He has 
such comprehensiveness, such mental variety and activity, 
that, if left to himself, he cannot keep fast hold of one 
view of things, and so cannot, without external help, be 
a consistent man. He needs the influence of a more 
single and stable judgment to keep him from divergency, 
and, on this condition, he is a most inestimable coad- 
jutor. As regards learning and ability, he has no su- 
perior. 

Pierce spoke the other day of the idea among some of 
his friends that his life had been planned, from a very 
early period, with a view to the station which he ulti- 
mately reached. He smiled at the notion, said that it 
was inconsistent with his natural character, and that it 
implied foresight and dexterity beyond what any mortal 
is endowed with. I think so too ; but nevertheless, I 
was long and long ago aware that he cherished a very 
high ambition, and that, though he might not anticipate 
the highest things, he cared very little about inferior 
objects. Then as to plans, I do not think that he had 
any definite ones ; but there was in him a subtle faculty, 
a real instinct, that taught him what was good for him, — 
that is to say, promotive of his political success, — and 
made him inevitably do it. He had a magic touch, that 
arranged matters with a delicate potency, which he 
himself hardly recognized; and he wrought through 
other minds so that neither he nor they always knew 



,1859.] ITALY. 209 

when and how far they were under his influence. Be- 
fore Ins nomination for the Presidency I had a sense 
that it was coming, and it never seemed to me an acci- 
dent. He is a most singular character ; so frank, so true, 
so immediate, so subtle, so simple, so complicated. 

I passed by the tower in the Via Portoghese to-day, 
and observed that the nearest shop appears to be for the 

sale of cotton or linen cloth The upper window 

of the tower was half open ; of course, like all or almost 
all other Roman windows, it is divided vertically, and 
each half swings back on hinges 



Last week a fritter-establishment was opened in our 
piazza. It was a wooden booth erected in the open 
square, and covered with canvas painted red, which 
looked as if it had withstood much rain and sunshine. 
In front were three great boughs of laurel, not so much 
for shade, I think, as ornament. There were two men, 
and their apparatus for business was a sort of stove, or 
charcoal furnace, and a frying-pan to place over it ; they 
had an armful or two of dry sticks, some flour, and I 
suppose oil, and this seemed to be all. It was Friday, 
and Lent besides, and possibly there was some other 
peculiar propriety in the consumption of fritters just 
then. At all events, their fire burned merrily from 
morning till night, and pretty late into the evening, and 
they had a fine run of custom; the commodity being 
simply dough, cut into squares or rhomboids, and 
thrown into the boiling oil, which quickly turned them 

to a light brown color. I sent J to buy some, and, 

tasting one, it resembled an unspeakably bad doughnut, 
without any sweetening. In fact, it was sour, for the 
Romans like their bread, and all their preparations of 
flour, in a state of acetous fermentation, which serves 
them instead of salt or other condiment. This fritter- 

N 



210 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

shop had grown up in a - night, like Aladdin's palace, and 
vanished as suddenly ; for after standing through Friday, 
Saturday, and Sunday, it was gone on Monday morning, 
and a chareoal-strewn place on the pavement where the 
furnace had been was the only memorial of it. It was 
curious to observe how immediately it became a loun- 
ging-place for idle people, who stood and talked all 
day with the fritter-friers, just as they might at any 
old shop in the basement of a palace, or between the 
half-buried pillars of the Temple of Minerva, which 
had been familiar to them and their remote grand- 
fathers. 

April \Uh. — Yesterday afternoon I drove with Mr. 
and Mrs. Story and Mr. Wilde to see a statue of Venus, 
which has just been discovered, outside of the Porta 
Portese, on the other side of the Tiber. A little dis- 
tance beyond the gate we came to the entrance of a 
vineyard, with a wheel-track through the midst of it ; 
and, following this, we soon came to a hillside, in which 
an excavation had been made with the purpose of build- 
ing a grotto for keeping and storing wine. They had 
dug down into what seemed to be an ancient bath- 
room, or some structure of that kind, the excavation 
being square and cellar-like, and built round with old 
subterranean walls of brick and stone. Within this 
hollow space the statue had been found, and it was 
now standing against one of the walls, covered with a 
coarse cloth, or a canvas bag. This being removed, 
there appeared a headless marble figure, earth -stained, of 
course, and with a slightly corroded surface, but won- 
derfully delicate and beautiful, the shape, size, and atti- 
tude, apparently, of the Venus de* Medici, but, as we all 
thought, more beautiful than that. It is supposed to 



1859.] ITALY. 211 

be the original, from which the Venus de' Medici was 
copied. Both arms were broken off, but the greater part 
of both, and nearly the whole of one hand, had been 
found, and these being adjusted to the figure, they took 
the well-known position before the bosom and the middle, 
as if the fragmentary woman retained her instinct of mod- 
esty to the last. There were the marks on the bosom 
and thigh where the fingers had touched ; whereas in the 
Venus de' Medici, if I remember rightly, the fingers 
are sculptured quite free of the person. The man who 
showed the statue now lifted from a corner a round block 
of marble, which had been lying there among other frag- 
ments, and this he placed upon the shattered neck of the 
Venus ; and behold, it was her head and face, perfect, 
all but the nose ! Even in spite of this mutilation, it 
seemed immediately to light up and vivify the entire 
figure; and, whatever I may heretofore have written 
about the countenance of the Venus de' Medici, I here 
record my belief that that head has been wrongfully 
foisted upon the statue ; at all events, it is unspeakably 
inferior to this newly discovered one. This face has a 
breadth and front which are strangely deficient in the 
other. The eyes are well opened, most unlike the but- 
tonhole lids of the Venus de' Medici ; the whole head is 
so much larger as to entirely obviate the criticism that 
has always been made on the diminutive head of the De' 
Medici statue. If it had but a nose ! They ought to 
sift every handful of earth that has been thrown out of 
the excavation, for the nose and the missing hand and 
fingers must needs be there; and, if they were found, 
the effect would be like the reappearance of a divinity 
upon earth. Mutilated as we saw her, it was strangely 
interesting to be present at the moment, as it were, when 
she had just risen from her long burial, and was shed- 



212 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

ding the unquenchable lustre around her which no eye 
had seen for. twenty or more centuries. The earth still 
clung about her ; her beautiful lips were full of it, till 
Mr. Story took a thin chip of wood and cleared it away 
from between them. 

The proprietor of the vineyard stood by ; a man with 
the most purple face and hugest and reddest nose that I 
ever beheld in my life. It must have taken innumerable 
hogsheads of his thin vintage to empurple his face in this 
manner. He chuckled much over the statue, and, I sup- 
pose, counts upon making his fortune by it. He is now 
awaiting a bid from the Papal government, which, I be- 
lieve, has the right of pre-emption whenever any relics of 
ancient art are discovered. If the statue could but be 
smuggled out of Italy, it might command almost any 
price. There is not, I think, any name of a sculptor on 
the pedestal, as on that of the Venus de' Medici. A 
dolphin is sculptured on the pillar against which she 
leans. The statue is of Greek marble. It was first 
found about eight days ago, but has been offered for in- 
spection only a day or two, and already the visitors come 
in throngs, and the beggars gather about the entrance of 
the vineyard. A wine shop, too, seems to have been 
opened on the premises for the accommodation of this 
great concourse, and we saw a row of German artists sit- 
ting at a long table in the open air, each with a glass of 
thin wine and something to eat before him ; for the Ger- 
mans refresh nature ten times to other persons once. 

How the whole world might be peopled with antique 
beauty if the Romans would only dig ! 

April 19 th. — General Pierce leaves Rome this morn- 
ing for Venice, by way of Ancona, and taking the steameT 
thence to Trieste. I had hoped to make the journey 



1859.] ITALY. 213 

along with him ; but U 's terrible illness lias made it 

necessar} r for us to continue here another mouth, and we 
are thankful that this seems now to be the extent of our 
misfortune. Never having had any trouble before that 
pierced into my very vitals, I did not know what com- 
fort there might be in the manly sympathy of a friend ; 
but Pierce has undergone so great a sorrow of his own, 
and has so large and kindly a heart, and is so tender and 
so strong, that he really did me good, and I shall always 
love him the better for the recollection of his ministra- 
tions in these dark days. Thank God, the thing we 
dreaded did not come to pass. 

Pierce is wonderfully little changed. Indeed, now 
that he has won and enjoyed — if there were any enjoy- 
ment in it — the highest success that public life could 
give him, he seems more like what he was in his early 
youth than at any subsequent period. He is evidently 
happier than I have ever known him since our college 
days ; satisfied with what he has been, and with the posi- 
tion in the country that remains to him, after filling such 
an office. Amid all his former successes, — early as they 
came, and great as they were, — I always perceived that 
something gnawed within him, and kept him forever rest- 
less and miserable. Nothing he won was worth the win- 
ning, except as a step gained toward the summit. I 
cannot tell how early he began to look towards the Presi- 
dency ; but I believe he would have died an unhappy man 
without it. And yet what infinite chances there seemed 
to be against his attaining it ! When I look at it in one 
way, it strikes me as absolutely miraculous ; in another, 
it came like an event that I had all along expected. It 
was due to his wonderful tact, which is of so subtle a 
character that he himself is but partially sensible of it. 

I have found in him, here in Rome, the whole of my 



£14 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

early friend, and even better than I used to know him ; a 
heart as true and affectionate, a mind much widened and 
deepened by his experience of life. We hold just the 
same relation to each other as of yore, and we have 
passed all the turning-off places, and may hope to go 
on together still the same dear friends as long as we live. 
I do not love him one whit the less for haviug been Pres- 
ident, nor for having done me the greatest good in his 
power ; a fact that speaks eloquently in his favor, and 
perhaps says a little for myself. If he had been merely 
a benefactor, perhaps I might not have borne it so well j 
but each did his best for the other as friend for friend. 

May Yoth. — Yesterday afternoon we went to the 
Barberini picture-gallery to take a farewell look at the 
Beatrice Cenci, which I have twice visited before since 
our return from Florence. I attempted a description of 
it at my first visit, more than a year ago, but the picture 
is quite indescribable and unaccountable in its effect, for 
if you attempt to analyze it you can never succeed in get- 
ting at the secret of its fascination. Its peculiar expres- 
sion eludes a straightforward glance, and can only be 
caught by side glimpses, or when the eye falls upon it 
casually, as it were, and without thinking to discover any- 
thing, as if the picture had a life and consciousness of its 
own, and were resolved not to betray its secret of grief 
or guilt, though it wears the full expression of it when 
it imagines itself unseen. I think no other such magical 
effect can ever have been wrought by pencil. I looked 
close into its eyes, with a determination to see all that 
there was in them, and could see nothing that might not 
have been in any young girl's eyes ; and yet, a moment 
afterwards, there was the expression — seen aside, and 
vanishing in a moment — of a being unhumanized by 



1859.] ITALY. 215 

some terrible fate, and gazing at me out of a remote and 
inaccessible region, where she was frightened to be alone, 
but where no sympathy could reach her. The mouth is 
beyond measure touching ; the lips apart, looking as in- 
nocent as a baby's after it has been crying. The picture 
never can be copied. Guido himself could not have done 
it over again. The copyists get all sorts of expression, 
gay, as well as grievous ; some copies have a coquettish 
air, a half-backward glance, thrown alluring at the spec- 
tator, but nobody ever did catch, or ever will, the vanish- 
ing charm of that sorrow. I hated to leave the picture, 
and yet was glad when I had taken my last glimpse, be- 
cause it so perplexed and troubled me not to be able to 
get hold of its secret. 

Thence we went to the Church of the Capuchins, and 
saw Guido's Archangel. I have been several times to 
this church, but never saw the picture before, though I 
am familiar with the mosaic copy at St. Peter's, and had 
supposed the latter to be an equivalent representation 
of the original. It is nearly or quite so as respects the 
general effect ; but there is a beauty in the archangel's 
face that immeasurably surpasses the copy, —the expres- 
sion of heavenly severity, and a degree of pain, trouble, 
or disgust, at being brought in contact with sin, even for 
the purpose of quelling and punishing it. There is some- 
thing finical in the copy, which I do not find in the origi- 
nal. The sandalled feet are here those of an angel ; in 
the mosaic they are those of a celestial coxcomb, treading 
daintily, as if he were afraid they would be soiled by the 
touch of Lucifer. 

After looking at the Archangel we went down under 
the church, guided by a fleshy monk, and saw the famous 
cemetery, where the dead monks of many centuries back 
have been laid to sleep in sacred earth from Jerusa- 
lem 



216 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

FRANCE. 

Hotel des Colonies, Marseilles, May %9tk, Saturday. 
— Wednesday was the day fixed for our departure from 
Rome, and after breakfast I walked to the Pincian, and 
saw the garden and the city, and the Borghese grounds, 
and St. Peter's in an earlier sunlight than ever before. 
Methought they never looked so beautiful, nor the sky 
so bright and blue. I saw Soracte on the horizon, and 
I looked at everything as if for the last time ; nor do I 
wish ever to see any of these objects again, though no 
place ever took so strong a hold of my being as Rome, 
nor ever seemed so close to me and so strangely familiar. 
I seem to know it better than my birthplace, and to have 
known it longer ; and though I have been very miserable 
there, and languid with the effects of the atmosphere, 
and disgusted with a thousand things in its daily life, still 
I cannot say I hate it, perhaps might fairly own a love 
for it. But life being too short for such questionable 
and troublesome enjoyments, I desire never to set eyes 
on it again. . ; . . 

.... We traversed again that same weary and dreary 
tract of country which we passed over in a winter after- 
noon and night on our first arrival in Rome. It is as 
desolate a country as can well be imagined, but about mid- 
way of our journey we came to the sea-shore, and kept very 
near it during the rest of the way. The sight and fra- 
grance of it were exceedingly refreshing after so long an 

interval, and U revived visibly as we rushed along, 

while J chuckled and contorted himself with ineffable 

delight. 

We reached Civita Veechia in three or four hours, 

and were there subjected to various troubles All 

the while Miss S and I were bothering about the 



1859.] FRANCE. 217 

passport, the rest of the family sat in the sun on the 
quay, with all kinds of bustle and confusion around them ; 
a very trying experience to U after the long seclu- 
sion and quiet of her sick-chamber. But she did not 
seem to suffer from it, and we finally reached the steamer 
in good condition and spirits 

I slept wretchedly in my short and narrow berth, 
more especially as there was an old gentleman who 
snored as if he were sounding a charge ; it was terri- 
bly hot too, and I rose before four o'clock, and was 
on deck amply in time to watch the distant approach 
of sunrise. We arrived at Leghorn pretty early, and 
might have gone ashore and spent the day. Indeed, we 
had been recommended by Dr. Franco, and had fully 
purposed to spend a week or ten days there, in expec- 
tation of benefit to U 's health from the sea air 

and sea bathing, because he thought her still too feeble 
to make the whole voyage to Marseilles at a stretch. 
But she showed herself so strong that we thought she 
would get as much good from our three days' voyage as 
from the days by the sea-shore. Moreover, .... we 
all of ns still felt the languor of the Roman atmosphere, 
and dreaded the hubbub and crazy confusion of landing 

at an Italian port So we lay in the harbor all 

day without stirring from the steamer It would 

have been pleasant, however, to have gone to Pisa, fif- 
teen miles off, and seen the leaning tower ; but, for my 
part, I have arrived at that point where it is somewhat 
pleasanter to sit quietly in any spot whatever than to 
see whatever grandest or most beautiful thing. At 
least this was my mood in the harbor of Leghorn. 
From the deck of the steamer there were many things 
visible that might have been interesting to describe: 
the boats of peculiar rig, and covered with awning ; the 

yoL. ii. 10 



218 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

crowded shipping ; the disembarkation of horses from 
the French cavalry, which were lowered from steamers 
into gondolas or lighters, and hung motionless, like the 
sign of the Golden Fleece, during the transit, only kick- 
ing a little when their feet happened to graze the vessel's 
side. One horse plunged overboard, and narrowly es- 
caped drowning. There was likewise a disembarkation 
of French soldiers in a train of boats, which rowed 
shoreward with sound of trumpet. The French are con- 
centrating a considerable number of troops at this point. 

Our steamer was detained by order of the French 
government to take on board despatches ; so that, in- 
stead of sailing at dusk, as is customary, we lay in the 
harbor till seven of the next morning. A number of 
young Sardinian officers, in green uniform, came on 
board, and a pale and picturesque-looking Italian, and 
other worthies of less note, — English, American, and 
of all races, — among them a Turk with a little boy in 
Christian dress ; also a Greek gentleman with his young 
bride. 

At the appointed time we weighed anchor for Genoa, 
and had a beautiful day on the Mediterranean, and for 
the first time in my life I saw the real dark blue of the 
sea. I do not remember noticing it on my outward 
voyage to Italy. It is the most beautiful hue that can 
be imagined, like a liquid sky ; and it retains its lus- 
trous blue directly under the side of the ship, where the 

water of the mid-Atlantic looks greenish We 

reached Genoa at seven in the afternoon Genoa 

looks most picturesquely from the sea, at the foot of a 
sheltering semicircle of lofty hills ; and as we lay in the 
harbor we saw, among other interesting objects, the 
great Doria Palace, with its gardens, and the cathedral, 
and a heap and sweep of stately edifices, with the moun- 



1859.] PRANCE. 219 

tains looking down upon the city, and crowned with for- 
tresses. The variety of hue in the houses, white, green, 
pink, and orange, was very remarkable. It would have 
been well to go ashore here for an hour or two and see 
the streets, — having already seen the palaces, churches, 
and public buildings at our former visit, — and buy a 
few specimens of Genoa goldsmiths' work ; but I pre- 
ferred the steamer's deck, so the evening passed pleas- 
antly away ; the two lighthouses at the entrance of the 
port kindled up their fires, and at nine o'clock the 
evening gun thundered from the fortress, and was rever- 
berated from the heights. We sailed away at eleven, 
and I was roused from my first sleep by the snortings 
and hissings of the vessel as she got under way. 

At Genoa we took on board some more passengers, an 
English nobleman with his lady being of the number. 

These were Lord and Lady J , and before the end 

of our voyage his lordship talked to me of a translation 
of Tasso in which he is engaged, and a stanza or two of 
which he repeated to me. I really liked the lines, and 
liked too the simplicity and frankness with which he 
spoke of it to me a stranger, and the way he seemed to 
separate his egotism from the idea which he evidently 
had that he is going to make an excellent translation. 
I sincerely hope it may be so. He began it without any 
idea of publishing it, or of ever bringing it to a conclu- 
sion, but merely as a solace and occupation while in 
great trouble during an illness of his wife, but he has 
gradually come to find it the most absorbing occupation 
he ever undertook; and as Mr. Gladstone and other 
high authorities give him warm encouragement, he 
now means to translate the entire poem, and to pub- 
lish it with beautiful illustrations, and two years hence 
the world may expect to see it. I do not quite per- 



220 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

ceive how such a man as this — a man of frank, warm, 
simple, kindly nature, but surely not of a poetical 
temperament, or very refined, or highly cultivated — 
should make a good version of Tasso's poems ; but per- 
haps the dead poet's soul may take possession of this 
healthy organization, and wholly turn him to its own 
purposes. 

The latter part of our voyage to-day lay close along 
the coast of Trance, which was hilly and picturesque, 
and as we approached Marseilles was very bold and 
striking. We steered among rocky islands, rising 
abruptly out of the sea, mere naked crags, without a 
trace of verdure upon them, and with the surf breaking 
at their feet. They were unusual specimens of what hills 
would look like without the soil, that is to them what 
flesh is to a skeleton. Their shapes were often wonder- 
fully fine, and the great headlands thrust themselves out, 
and took such hues of light and shade that it seemed like 
sailing through a picture. In the course of the after- 
noon a squall came up and blackened the sky all over in 
a twinkling ; our vessel pitched and tossed, and a brig a 
little way from us had her sails blown about in wild 
fashion. The blue of the sea turned as black as night, 
and soon the rain began to spatter down upon us, and 
continued to sprinkle and drizzle a considerable time 
after the wind had subsided. It was quite calm and 
pleasant when we entered the harbor of Marseilles, which 
lies at the foot of very fair hills, and is set among great 
cliffs of stone. I did not attend much to this, however, 
being in dread of the difficulty of landing and passing 
through the custom-house with our twelve or fourteen 
trunks and numberless carpet-bags. The trouble van- 
ished into thin air, nevertheless, as we approached it, for 
not a single trunk or bag was opened, and, moreover, 



1859.] FRANCE. 221 

our luggage and ourselves were not only landed, but 
the greater part of it conveyed to the railway without 
any expense. Long live Louis Napoleon, say I. We 
established ourselves at the Hotel des Colonies, and 

then Miss S , J , and I drove hither and thither 

about Marseilles, making arrangements for our journey 
to Avignon, where we mean to go to-day. We might 
have avoided a good deal of this annoyance ; but trav- 
ellers, like other people, are continually getting their ex- 
perience just a little too late. It was after nine before 
we got back to the hotel and took our tea in peace. 

AVIGNON. 

Hotel de V Europe, June 1st. — I remember nothing 
very special to record about Marseilles ; though it was 
really like passing from death into life, to find ourselves 
in busy, cheerful, effervescing France, after living so 
long between asleep and awake in sluggish Italy. Mar- 
seilles is a very interesting and entertaining town, with 
its bold surrounding heights, its wide streets, — so they 
seemed to us after the Roman alleys, — its squares, 
shady with trees, its diversified population of sailors, 
citizens, Orientals, and what not ; but I have no spirit 
for description any longer ; being tired of seeing things, 
and still more of telling myself about them. Only a 
young traveller can have patience to write his travels. 
The newest things, nowadays, have a familiarity to my 
eyes ; whereas in their lost sense of novelty lies the 
charm and power of description. 

On Monday (30th May), though it began with heavy 
rain, we set early about our preparations for depart- 
ure, .... and, at about three, we left the Hotel des 
Colonies. It is a very comfortable hotel, though ex- 



222 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

pensive. The Restaurant connected with it occupies the 
enclosed court-yard and the arcades around it ; and it 
was a good amusement to look down from the surround- 
ing gallery, communicating with our apartments, and see 
the fashion and manner of French eating, all the time 
going forward. In sunny weather a great awning is 
spread over the whole court, across from the upper sto- 
ries of the house. There is a grass-plat in the middle, and 
a very spacious and airy dining-saloon is thus formed. 

Our railroad carriage was comfortable, and we found 
in it, besides two other Frenchwomen, two nuns. They 
were very devout, and sedulously read their little books 
of devotion, repeated prayers under their breath, kissed 
the crucifixes which hung at their girdles, and told a 
string of beads, which they passed from one to the 
other. So much were they occupied with these duties, 
that they scarcely looked at the scenery along the road, 
though, probably, it is very rare for them to see any- 
thing outside of their convent walls. They never failed 
to mutter a prayer and kiss the crucifix whenever we 
plunged into a tunnel. If they glanced at their fellow- 
passengers, it was shyly and askance, with their lips in 
motion all the time, like children afraid to let their eyes 
wander from their lesson-book. One of them, however, 

took occasion to pull down R 's dress, which, in her 

frisky movements about the carriage, had got out of 
place, too high for the nun's sense of decorum. Neither 
of them was at all pretty, nor was the black stuff dress 
and white muslin cap in the least becoming, neither 
were their features of an intelligent or high-bred stamp. 
Their manners, however, or such little glimpses as I 
could get of them, were unexceptionable ; and when I 
drew a curtain to protect one of them from the sun, she 
made me a very courteous gesture of thanks. 



1859.] FRANCE. 223 

We bad some very good views both of sea and lulls ; 
and a part of our way lay along the banks of the Rhone. 
.... By the by, at the station at Marseilles I bought 
the two volumes of the " Livre des Merveilles," by a 
certain author of my acquaintance, translated into Trench, 
and printed and illustrated in very pretty style. Miss 

S also bought them, and, in answer to her inquiry 

for other works by the same author, the bookseller ob- 
served that '4 she did not think Monsieur Nathaniel had 
published anything else/' The Christian name seems to 
be the most important one in France, and still more es- 
pecially in Italy. 

We arrived at Avignon, Hotel de FEurope, in the 

dusk of the evening The lassitude of Rome still 

clings to us, and I, at least, feel no spring of life or 
activity, whether at morn or eve. In the morning we 
found ourselves very pleasantly situated as regards lodg- 
ings. The gallery of our suite of rooms looks down as 
usual into an enclosed court, three sides of which are 
formed by the stone house and its two wings, and the 
third by a high wall, with a gateway of iron between 
two lofty stone pillars, which, for their capitals, have 
great stone vases, with grass growing in them, and 
hanging over the brim. There is a large plane-tree in 
one corner of the court, and creeping plants clamber up 
trellises ; and there are pots of flowers and bird-cages, 
all of which give a very fresh and cheerful aspect to the 
enclosure. The court is paved with small round stones ; 
the omnibus belonging to the hotel, and all the carriages 
of guests, drive into it; and the wide arch of the 
stable-door opens under the central part of the house. 
Nevertheless, the scene is not in all respects that of a 
stable-yard; for gentlemen and ladies come from the 
mile- a manger and other rooms, and stand talking in 



224 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOXS. [1859. 

the court, or occupy chairs and seats there ; children 
play about ; the hostess or her daughter often appears 
and talks with her guests or servants ; dogs lounge, 
and, in short, the court might well enough be taken 
for the one scene of a classic play. The hotel seems to 
be of the first class, though such would not be indi- 
cated, either in England or America, by thus mixing 
up the stable with the lodgings. I have taken two or 
three rambles about the town, and have climbed a high 
rock which dominates over it, and gives a most exten- 
sive view from the broad table-land of its summit. The 
old church of Avignon — as old as the times of its 
popes, and older — stands close beside this mighty and 
massive crag. We went into it, and found it a dark 
old place, with broad, interior arches, and a singularly 
shaped dome ; a venerable Gothic and Grecian porch, 
with ancient frescos in its arched spaces ; some dusky 
pictures within ; an ancient chair of stone, formerly oc- 
cupied by the popes, and much else that would have 
been exceedingly interesting before I went to Rome. 
But Rome takes the charm out of all inferior antiquity, 
as well as the life out of human beings. 

This forenoon J and I have crossed the Rhone by 

a bridge, just the other side of one of the city gates, 
which is near our hotel. We walked along the river- 
side, and saw the ruins of an ancient bridge, which ends 
abruptly in the midst of the stream ; two or three arches 
still making tremendous strides across, while the others 
have long ago been crumbled away by the rush of the 
rapid river. The bridge was originally founded by St. 
Benezet, who received a Divine order to undertake the 
work, while yet a shepherd-boy, with only three sous 
in his pocket ; and he proved the authenticity of the 
mission by taking an immense stone on his shoulder, and 



1859,] FRANCE. 225 

laying it for the foundation. There is still an ancient 
chapel midway on the bridge, and I believe St. Benezet 
lies buried there, in the midst of his dilapidated work. 
The bridge now used is considerably lower down the 
stream. It is a wooden suspension-bridge, broader than 
the ancient one, and doubtless more than supplies its 
place ; else, unquestionably, St. Benezet would think it 
necessary to repair his own. The view from the inner 
side of this ruined structure, grass-grown and w r eedy, 
and leading to such a precipitous plunge into the swift 
river, is very picturesque, in connection with the gray 
town and above it, the great, massive bulk of the cliff, 
the towers of the church, and of a vast old edifice, shape- 
less, ugly, and venerable, which the popes built and occu- 
pied as their palace, many centuries ago 

After dinner we all set out on a walk, in the course of 

which we called at a bookseller's shop to show U an 

enormous cat, which I had already seen. It is of the 
Angora breed, of a mottled yellow color, and is really 
a wonder ; as big and broad as a tolerably sized dog, 
very soft and silken, and apparently of the gentlest dis- 
position. I never imagined the like, nor felt anything so 
deeply soft as this great beast. Its master seems very 
fond and proud of it ; and, great favorite as the cat is, 
she does not take airs upon herself, but is gently shy 
and timid in her demonstrations. 

We ascended the great Rocher above the palace of the 
popes, and on our way looked into the old church, which 
was so dim iu the decline of day that we could not see 
within the dusky arches, through which the chapels com- 
municated with the nave. Thence we pursued our way 
up the farther ascent, and, standing on the edge of the 
precipice, — protected by a parapet of stone, and in other 
places by an iron railing, — we could look down upon the 
10* o 



226 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

road that winds its dusky track far below, and at the 
river Rhone, which eddies close beside it. This is indeed 
a massive and lofty cliff, and it tumbles down so precipi- 
tously that I could readily have flung myself from the 
bank, and alighted on my head in the middle of the river. 
The Rhone passes so near its base that I threw stones 
a good way into its current. We talked with a man of 
Avignon, who leaned over the parapet near by, and he 
was very kind in explaining the points of view, and told 
us that the river, which winds and doubles upon itself 
so as to look like at least two rivers, is really the Rhone 
alone. The Durance joins with it within a few miles be- 
low Avignon, but is here invisible. 

Hotel de V Europe, June 2d. — This morning we went 
again to the Duomo of the popes ; and this time we al- 
lowed the custode, or sacristan, to show us the curiosi- 
ties of it. He led us into a chapel apart, and showed us 
the old Gothic tomb of Pope John XXII., where the 
recumbent statue of the pope lies beneath one of those 
beautiful and venerable canopies of stone which look at 
once so light and so solemn. I know not how many hun- 
dred years old it is, but everything of Gothic origin has 
a faculty of conveying the idea of age ; whereas classic 
forms seem to have nothing to do with time, and so lose 
the kind of impressiveness that arises from suggestions of 
decay and the past. 

In the sacristy the guide opened a cupboard that con- 
tamed the jewels and sacred treasures of the church, and 
showed a most exquisite figure of Christ in ivory, repre- 
sented as on a cross of ebony ; and it was executed with 
wonderful truth and force of expression, and with great 
beauty likewise. I do not see what a full-length marble 
statue could have had that was lacking in this little ivory 



1859.] FRANCE. 227 

figure of hardly more than a foot high. It is about two 
centuries old, by an unknown artist. There is another 
famous ivory statuette in Avignon which seems to be 
more celebrated than this, but can hardly be superior. I 
shall gladly look at it if it comes in my way. 

Next to this, the prettiest thing the man showed us 
was a circle of emeralds, in one of the holy implements ; 
and then he exhibited a little bit of a pope's skull ; also a 
great old crozier, that looked as if made chiefly of silver, 
and partly gilt ; but I saw where the plating of silver was 
worn away, and betrayed the copper of its actual sub- 
stance. There were two or three pictures in the sacristy, 
by ancient and modern French artists, very unlike the 
productions of the Italian masters, but not without a 
beauty of their own. 

Leaving the sacristy, we returned into the church, 

where U and J began to draw the pope's old stone 

chair. There is a beast, or perhaps more than one, gro- 
tesquely sculptured upon it ; the seat is high and square, 
the back low and pointed, and it offers no enticing prom- 
ise to a weary man. 

The interior of the church is massively picturesque, 
with its vaulted roof, and a stone gallery, heavily orna- 
mented, running along each side of the nave. Each arch 
of the nave gives admittance to a chapel, in all of which 
there are pictures, and sculptures in most of them. One 
of these chapels is of the time of Charlemagne, and has a 
vaulted roof of admirable architecture, covered with fres- 
cos of modern date and little merit. In an adjacent 
chapel is the stone monument of Pope Benedict, whose 
statue reposes on it, like many which I have seen in the 
cathedral of York and other old English churches. In 
another part we saw a monument, consisting of a plain 
slab supported on pillars ; it is said to be of a Roman or 



228 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

very early Christian epoch. In another chapel was a 
figure of Christ in wax, I believe, and clothed in real 
drapery ; a very ugly object. Also, a figure reposing 
under a slab, which strikes the spectator with the idea 
that it is really a dead person enveloped in a shroud. 
There are windows of painted glass in some of the chap- 
els ; and the gloom of the dimly lighted interior, espe- 
cially beneath the broad, low arches, is very impressive. 

While we were there some women assembled at one of 
the altars, and went through their acts of devotion with- 
out the help of a priest ; one and another of them alter- 
nately repeating prayers, to which the rest responded. 
The murmur of their voices took a musical tone, which 
was reverberated by the vaulted arches. 

U and I now came out ; and, under the porch, 

we found an old woman selling rosaries, little religious 
books, and other holy things. We bought two little 
medals of the Immaculate Virgin, one purporting to be 
of silver, the other of gold ; but as both together cost 
only two or three sous, the genuineness of the material 
may well be doubted. We sat down on the steps of a 
crucifix which is placed in front of the church, and the 
children began to draw the porch, of which I hardly 
know whether to call the architecture classic or Gothic 
(as I said before); at all events it has a venerable aspect, 
and there are frescos within its arches by Simone Memmi. 
.... The popes' palace is contiguous to the church, 
and just below it, on the hillside. It is now occupied as 
barracks by some regiments of soldiers, a number of whom 
were lounging before the entrance ; but we passed the 
sentinel without being challenged, and addressed our- 
selves to the concierge, who readily assented to our re- 
quest to be shown through the edifice. A French gen- 
tleman and lady, likewise, came with similar purpose, and 



1859.] FRANCE. 229 

went the rounds along with us. The palace is such a 
confused heap and conglomeration of buildings, that it is 
impossible to get within any sort of a regular description. 
It is a huge, shapeless mass of architecture ; and if it 
ever had any pretence to a plan, it has lost it in the 
modern alterations. For instance, an immense and lofty 
chapel, or rather church, has had two floors, one above 
the other, laid at different stages of its height ; and the 
upper one of these floors, which extends just where the 
arches of the vaulted roof begin to spring from the pil- 
lars, is ranged round with the beds of one of the regi- 
ments of soldiers. They are small iron bedsteads, each 
with its narrow mattress, and covered with a dark blan- 
ket. On some of them lay or lounged a soldier ; other 
soldiers were cleaning their accoutrements ; elsewhere 
we saw parties of them playing cards. So it was wher- 
ever we went among those large, dingy, gloomy halls and 
chambers, which, no doubt, were once stately and sump- 
tuous, with pictures, with tapestry, and all sorts of adorn- 
ment that the Middle Ages knew how to use. The win- 
dows threw a sombre light through embrasures at least 
two feet thick. There were staircases of magnificent 
breadth. We were shown into two small chapels, in dif- 
ferent parts of the building, both containing the remains 
of old frescos wofully defaced. In one of them was a 
light, spiral staircase of iron, built in the centre of the 
room as a means of contemplating the frescos, which 

were said to be the work of our old friend Giotto 

Finally, we climbed a long, long, narrow stair, built in 
the thickness of the wall, and thus gained access to the 
top of one of the towers, whence we saw the noblest 
landscapes, mountains, plains, and the Rhone, broad and 
bright, winding hither and -thither, as if it had lost its 
way. 



230 FllENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

Beneath our feet was the gray, ugly old palace, and 
its many courts, just as void of system and as inconceiva- 
ble as when we were burrowing through its bewildering 
passages. No end of historical romances might be made 
out of this castle of the popes ; and there ought to be a 
ghost in every room, and droves of them in some of the 
rooms ; for there have been murders here in the gross 
and in detail, as well hundreds of years ago, as no 
longer back than the French Revolution, when there was 
a great massacre in one of the courts. Traces of this 
bloody business were visible in actual stains on the wall 
only a few years ago. 

Returning to the room of the concierge, who, being a 
little stiff with age, had sent an attendant round with us, 
instead of accompanying us in person, he showed us a 
picture of Rienzi, the last of the Roman tribunes, who 
was once a prisoner here. On a table, beneath the pic- 
ture, stood a little vase of earthenware containing some 
silver coin. We took it as a hint, in the customary style 
of French elegance, that a fee should be deposited here, 
instead of being put into the hand of the concierge ; so 
the French gentleman deposited half a franc, and I, in 
my magnificence, twice as much. 

Hotel de l' Europe, June &h. — We are still here. 
.... I have been daily to the Rocher des Dons, and 
have grown familiar with the old church on its declivity. 
I think I might become attached to it by seeing it often. 
A sombre old interior, with its heavy arches, and its roof 
vaulted like the top of a trunk ; its stone gallery, with 
ponderous adornments, running round three sides. I 
observe that it is a daily custom of the old women to say 
their prayers in concert, sometimes making a pilgrimage, 
as it were, from chapel to chapel. The voice of one of 



1839.] FRANCE. 231 

them is heard running through the series of petitions, 
and at intervals the voices of the others join and swell 
into a chorus, so that it is like a river connecting a series 
of lakes ; or, not to use so gigantic a simile, the one 
voice is like a thread, on which the beads of a rosary are 
strung. 

One day two priests came and sat down beside these 
prayerful women, and joined in their petitions. I am in- 
clined to hope that there is something genuine in the de- 
votion of these old women. 

The view from the top of the Rocher des Dons (a con- 
traction of Dominis) grows upon me, and is truly mag- 
nificent ; a vast mountain-girdled plain, illuminated by 
the far windings and reaches of the Rhoue. The river 
is here almost as turbid as the Tiber itself; but, I remem- 
ber, in the upper part of its course the waters are beau- 
tifully transparent. A powerful rush is indicated by the 
swirls and eddies of its broad surface. 

Yesterday was a race day at Avignon, and apparently 
almost the whole population and a great many strange rs 
streamed out of the city gate nearest our hotel, on their 
way to the race-course. There were many noticeable 
figures that might come well into a French picture or 
description ; but only one remains in my memory, — a 
young man with a wooden leg, setting off for the course — 
a walk of several miles, I believe — with prodigious cour- 
age and alacrity, flourishing his wooden leg with an air 
and grace that seemed to render it positively flexible. 
The crowd returned towards sunset, and almost all night 
long, the streets and the whole air of the old town were 
full of song and merriment. There was a ball in a tem- 
porary structure, covered with an awning, in the Place 
d'Horloge, and a showman has erected his tent and 
spread forth his great painted canvases, announcing an 



232 FEENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

anaconda and a sea-tiger to he seen. J paid four 

sous for admittance, and found that the sea-tiger was 
nothing but a large seal, and the anaconda altogether a 
myth. 

I have rambled a good deal about the town. Its streets 
are crooked and perplexing, and paved with round peb- 
bles for the most part, which afford more uncomfortable 
pedestrianism than the pavement of Rome itself. It is 
an ancient-looking place, with some large old mansions, 
but few that are individually impressive; though here and 
there one sees an antique entrance, a corner tower, or 
other bit of antiquity, that throws a venerable effect over 
the gray commonplace of past centuries. The town is 
not overclean, and often there is a kennel of unhappy 
odor. There appear to have been many more churches 
and devotional establishments under the ancient domin- 
ion of the popes than have been kept intact in subsequent 
ages ; the tower and facade of a church, for instance, 
form the front of a carpenter's shop, or some such ple- 
beian place. The church where Laura lay has quite dis- 
appeared, and her tomb along with it. The town reminds 
me of Chester, though it does not in the least resemble 
it, and is not nearly so picturesque. Like Chester, it is 
entirely surrounded by a wall ; and that of Avignon — 
though it has no delightful promenade on its top, as the 
wall of Chester has — is the more perfectly preserved in 
its mediaeval form, and the more picturesque of the two. 

J and I have once or twice walked nearly round it, 

commencing from the gate of Ouelle, which is very near 
our hotel. From this point it stretches for a considera- 
ble distance along by the river, and here there is a broad 
promenade, with trees, and blocks of stone for seats ; on 
one side " the arrowy Rhone/' generally carrying a cool- 
ing breeze along with it ; on the other, the gray wall, with 



1859.] FRANCE. 233 

its battlements and machicolations, impending over what 
was once the moat, but which is now full of careless and 
untrained shrubbery. At intervals there are round tow- 
ers swelling out from the wall, and rising a little above 
it. After about half a mile along the river-side the wall 
turns at nearly right angles, and still there is a wide road, 
a shaded walk, a boulevard ; and at short distances are 
cafes, with their little round tables before the door, or 
small shady nooks of shrubbery. So numerous are these 
retreats and pleasaunces that I do not see how the little 
old town can support them all, especially as there are a 
great many cafes within the walls. I do not remember 
seeing any soldiers on guard at the numerous city gates, 
but there is an office in the side of each gate for levying 
the octroi, and old women are sometimes on guard there. 

This morning, after breakfast, J and I crossed 

the suspension-bridge close by the gate nearest our 
hotel, and walked to the ancient town of Yilleneuve, on 
the other side of the Rhone. The first bridge leads to 
an island, from the farther side of whieh another very 
long one, with a timber foundation, accomplishes the 
passage of the other branch of the Rhone. There was 
a good breeze on the river, but after crossing it we 
found the rest of the walk excessively hot. This town 
of Villeneuve is of very ancient origin, and owes its 
existence, it is said, to the famous holiness of a female 
saint, whieh gathered round her abode and burial-place 
a great many habitations of people who reverenced her. 
She was the daughter of the King of Saragossa, and I 
presume she chose this site because it was so rocky and 
desolate. Afterwards it had a long mediaeval history ; 
and in the time of the Avignon popes, the cardinals, 
regretful of their abandoned Roman villas, built pleasure- 
houses here, so that the town was called Villa Nuova, 



£34 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS [1859. 

After they had done their best, it must have seemed to 
these poor cardinals but a rude and sad exchange for 
the Borghese, the Albani, the Pamfili Doria, and those 
other perfectest results of man's luxurious art. And 
probably the tradition of the Roman villas had really 
been kept alive, and extant examples of them all the 
way downward from the times of the empire. But this 
Villeneuve is the stoniest, roughest town that can be 
imagined. There are a few large old houses, to be sure, 
but built on a line with shabby village dwellings and 
barns, aud so presenting little but samples of magnificent 
shabbiness. Perhaps I might have found traces of old 
splendor if I had sought for them ; but, not having the 
history of the place in my mind, I passed through its 
scrambling streets without imagining that Princes of the 
Church had once made their abode here. The inhabi- 
tants now are peasants, or chiefly such; though, for 
aught I know, some of the French noblesse may bur- 
row in these palaces that look so like hovels. 

A large church, with a massive tower, stands near the 
centre of the town; and, of course, I did not fail to 
enter its arched door, — a pointed arch, with many 
frames and mouldings, one within another. An old 
woman was at her devotions, and several others came in 
and knelt during my stay there. It was quite an inter- 
esting interior ; a long nave, with six pointed arches on 
each side, beneath which were as many chapels. The 
walls were rich with pictures, not only in the chapels, 
but up and down the nave, above the arches. There 
were gilded virgins, too, and much other quaint de- 
vice that produced an effect that I rather liked than 
otherwise. At the end of the church, farthest from the 
high altar, there were four columns of exceedingly rick 
marble, and a good deal more of such precious material 



1859.] FRANCE. 235 

was wrought into the chapels and altars. There was an 
old stone seat, also, of some former pope or prelate. 
The church was dim enough to cause the lamps in the 
shrines to become points of vivid light, and, looking from 
end to end, it was a long, venerable, tarnished, Old 
World vista, not at all tampered with by modern taste. 

We now went on our way through the village, and, 
emerging from a gate, went clambering towards the cas- 
tle of St. Andre, which stands, perhaps, a quarter of a 
mile beyond it. This castle was built by Philip le Bel, 
as a restraint to the people of Avignon in extending 
their power on this side of the Rhone. We happened 
not to take the most direct way, and so approached the 
castle on the farther side and were obliged to go nearly 
round the hill on which it stands, before striking into 
the path which leads to its gate. It crowns a very bold 
and difficult hill, directly above the Rhone, opposite to 
Avignon, — which is so far off that objects are not 
minutely distinguishable, — and looking down upon the 
long, straggling town of Villeneuve. It must have 
been a place of mighty strength, in its day. Its ram- 
parts seem still almost entire, as looked upon from with- 
out, and when, at length, we climbed the rough, rocky 
pathway to the entrance, we found the two vast round 
towers, with their battlemented summits and arched 
gateway between them, just as perfect as they could 
have been five hundred or more years ago. Some exter- 
nal defences are now, however, in a state of ruin ; and 
there are only the remains of a tower, that once arose 
between the two round towers, and was apparently much 
more elevated than they. A little in front of the gate 
was a monumental cross of stone; and in the arch, be- 
tween the two round towers, were two little boys at 
play ; and an old woman soon showed herself, but took 



£36 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

no notice of us. Casting our eyes within the gateway, 
we saw what looked a rough village street, betwixt old 
houses built ponderously of stone, but having far more 
the aspect of huts than of castle-halls. They were evi- 
dently the dwellings of peasantry, and people engaged in 
rustic labor; and no doubt they have burrowed into the 
primitive structures of the castle, and, as they found 
convenient, have taken their crumbling materials to build 
bams and farm-houses. There was space and accommo- 
dation for a very considerable population ; but the men 
were probably at work in the fields, and the only persons 
visible were the children aforesaid, and one or two old 
women bearing bundles of twigs on their backs. They 
showed no curiosity respecting us, and though the wide 
space included within the castle-rampart seemed almost 
full of habitations ruinous or otherwise, I never found 
such a solitude in any ruin before. It contrasts very 
favorably in this particular with English castles, where, 
though you do not find rustic villages within the warlike 
enclosure, there is always a padlocked gate, always a 
guide, and generally half a dozen idle tourists. But 
here was only antiquity, with merely the natural growth 
of fungous human life upon it. 

We went to the end of the castle court and sat down, 
for lack of other shade, among some inhospitable nettles 
that grew close to the wall. Close by us was a great 
gap in the ramparts, — it may have been a breach which 
was once stormed through ; and it now afforded us an 

airy and sunny glimpse of distant hills J 

sketched part of the broken wall, which, by the by, did 
not seem to me nearly so thick as the walls of English 
castles. Then we returned through the gate, and I 
stopped, rather impatiently, under the hot sun, while 
J drew the outline of the two round towers. This 



1859.] SWITZERLAND. 237 

done, we resumed our way homeward, after drinking 
from a very deep well close by the square tower of Philip 
le Bel. Thence we went melting through the sunshine, 
which beat upward as pitilessly from the white road as it 
blazed downwards from the sky 

GENEVA. 

Hotel d'Angleterre, June Wth. — We left Avignon on 
Tuesday, 7th, and took the rail to Valence, where we 
arrived between four and five, and put up at the Hotel 
de la Poste, an ancient house, with dirty floors and dirt 
generally, but otherwise comfortable enough Val- 
ence is a stately old town, full of tall houses and irreg- 
ular streets. We found a cathedral there, not very large, 
but with a high and venerable interior, a nave supported 
by tall pillars, from the height of which spring arches. 
This loftiness is characteristic of French churches, as 

distinguished from those of Italy We likewise 

saw, close by the cathedral, a large monument with four 
arched entrances meeting beneath a vaulted roof; but, 
on inquiry of an old priest and other persons, we could 
get no account of it, except that it was a tomb, and of un- 
known antiquity. The architecture seemed classic, and 
yet it had some Gothic peculiarities, and it was a reverend 
and beautiful object. Had I written up my journal while 
the town was fresh in my remembrance, I might have 
found much to describe ; but a succession of other objects 
have obliterated most of the impressions I have received 
here. Our railway ride to Valence was intolerably hot. 
I have felt nothing like it since leaving America, and 
that is so long ago that the terrible discomfort was just 
as good as new 

We left Valence at four, and came that afternoon to 



238 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

Lyons, still along the Rhone. Either the waters of this 
river assume a transparency in winter which they lose 
in summer, or I was mistaken in thinking them transpar- 
ent on our former journey. They are now turbid ; but 
the hue does not suggest the idea of a running mud- 
puddle, as the water of the Tiber does. No streams, 
however, are so beautiful in the quality of their waters 
as the clear, brown rivers of New England. The scen- 
ery along this part of the Rhone, as we have found all 
t lie way from Marseilles, is very fine and impressive ; 
old villages, rocky cliffs, castellated steeps, quaint cha- 
teaux, and a thousand other interesting objects. 

We arrived at Lyons at five o'clock, and went to the 
Hotel de rUnivers, to which we had been recommended 
by our good hostess at Avignon. The day had become 

showery, but J and I strolled about a little before 

nightfall, and saw the general characteristics of the 
place. Lyons is a city of very stately aspect, hardly 
inferior to Paris; for it has regular streets of lofty 
houses, and immense squares planted with trees, and 
adorned with statues and fountains. New edifices of 
great splendor are in process of erection; and on the 
opposite side of the Rhone, where the site rises steep 
and high, there are structures of older date, that have 
an exceedingly picturesque effect, looking down upon 
the narrow town. 

The next morning I went out with J- in quest of 

my bankers, and of the American Consul; and as I had 
forgotten the directions of the waiter of the hotel, I of 
course went astray, and saw a good deal more of Lyons 
than I intended. In my wanderings I crossed the Rhone, 
and found myself in a portion of the city evidently much 
older than that with which I had previously made ac- 
quaintance ; narrow, crooked, irregular, and rudely paved 



1859.] & SWITZERLAND. 239 

streets, full of dingy business and bustle, — the city, in 
short, as it existed a century ago, and how much earlier 
I know not. Above rises that lofty elevation of ground 
"which I before noticed ; and the glimpses of its stately 
old buildings through the openings of the street were 
very picturesque. Unless it be Edinburgh, I have not 
seen any other city that has such striking features. Al- 
together unawares, immediately after crossing the bridge, 
we came upon the cathedral ; and the grand, time-black- 
ened Gotbic front, with its deeply arched entrances, 
seemed to me as good as anything I ever saw, — un- 
expectedly more impressive than all the ruins of Rome. 
I could but merely glance at its interior ; so that its 
noble height and venerable space, filled with the dim, 
consecrated light of pictured windows, recur to me as 
a vision. And it did me good to enjoy the awfulness 
and sanctity of Gothic architecture again, after so long 
shivering in classic porticos 

We now recrossed the river The Frank meth- 
ods and arrangements in matters of business seem to be 
excellent, so far as effecting the proposed object is con- 
cerned; but there is such an inexorable succession of 
steel-wrought forms, that life is not long enough for so 
much accuracy. The stranger, too, goes blindfold through 
all these processes, not knowing what is to turn up next, 
till, when quite in despair, he suddenly finds his business 
mysteriously accomplished 

We left Lyons at four o'clock, taking the railway for 
Geneva. The scenery was very striking throughout the 
journey ; but I allowed the hills, deep valleys, high im- 
pending cliffs, and whatever else I saw along the road, to 
pass from me without an ink-blot. We reached Geneva 

at nearly ten o'clock It is situated partly on low, 

flat ground, bordering the lake, and behind this level 



240 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

space it rises by steep, painfully paved streets, some of 
which can hardly be accessible by wheeled carriages. 
The prosperity of the town is indicated by a good many 
new and splendid edifices, for commercial and other pur- 
poses, in the vicinity of the lake ; but intermixed with 
these there are many quaint buildings of a stern gray 
color, and in a style of architecture that I prefer a thou- 
sand times to the monotony of Italian streets. Im- 
mensely high, red roofs, with windows in them, produce 
an effect that delights me. They are as ugly, perhaps, as 
can well be conceived, but very striking and individual. 
At each corner of these ancient houses frequently is a 
tower, the roof of which rises in a square pyramidal form, 
or, if the tower be round, in a round pyramidal form. 
Arched passages, gloomy and grimy, pass from one street 
to another. The lower town creeps with busy life, and 
swarms like an aut-hill; but if you climb the half-pre- 
cipitous streets, you find yourself among ancient and 
stately mansions, high roofed, with a strange aspect of 
grandeur about them, looking as if they might still be 
tenanted by such old magnates as dwelt in them centuries 
ago. There is also a cathedral, the older portion exceed- 
ingly fine ; but it has been adorned at some modern epoch 
witli a Grecian portico, — good in itself, but absurdly 
out of keeping with the edifice which it prefaces. This 
being a Protestant country, the doors were all shut, — an 
inhospitality that made me half a Catholic. It is funny 
enough that a stranger generally profits by all that is 
worst for the inhabitants of the country where he himself 
is merely a visitor. Despotism makes things all the 
pleasanter for the stranger. Catholicism lends itself ad- 
mirably to his purposes. 

There are public gardens (one, at least) in Geneva. 
.... Nothing struck me so much, I think, as the color 



1859.] SWITZERLAND. 241 

of the Rhone, as it flows under the bridges in the lower 
town. It is absolutely miraculous, and, beautiful as it is, 
suggests the idea that the tubs of a thousand dyers have 
emptied their liquid indigo into the stream. When once 
you have conquered and thrust out this idea, it is an in- 
expressible delight to look down into this intense, brightly 
transparent blue, that hurries beneath you with the speed 
of a race-horse. 

The shops of Geneva are very tempting to a traveller, 
being full of such little knick-knacks as he would be glad 
to carry away in memory of the place : wonderful carv- 
ings in wood and ivory, done with exquisite taste and 
skill ; jewelry that seems very cheap, but is doubtless 
dear enough, if you estimate it by the solid gold that 
goes into its manufacture ; watches, above all things else, 
for a third or a quarter of the price that one pays in Eng- 
land, looking just as well, too, and probably performing 
the whole of a watch's duty as uncriticisably. The Swiss 
people are frugal and inexpensive in their own habits, I 
believe, plain and simple, and careless of ornament ; but 
they seem to reckon on other people's spending a great 
deal of money for gewgaws. We bought some of their 

wooden trumpery, and likewise a watch for U 

Next to watches, jewelry, and wood-carving, I should say 
that cigars were one of the principal articles of commerce 
in Geneva. Cigar-shops present themselves at every step 
or two, and at a reasonable rate, there being no duties, I 
believe, on imported goods. There was no examination 
of our trunks on arrival, nor any questions asked on that 
score. 

VILLENEUVE. 

Hotel de Byron, June Ybth. — Yesterday afternoon we 
left Geneva by a steamer, starting from the quay at only 

VOL. II. 11 P 



242 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [IS59. 

a short distance from our hotel. The forenoon had been 
showery ; but the sun now came out very pleasantly, al- 
though there were still clouds and mist enough to give 
infinite variety to the mountain scenery. At the com- 
mencement of our voyage the scenery of the lake was not 
incomparably superior to that of other lakes on which I 
have sailed, as Lake Windermere, for instance, or Loch 
Lomond, or our own Lake Champlain. It certainly 
grew more grand and beautiful, however, till at length 
I felt that I had never seen anything worthy to be put 
beside it. The southern shore has the grandest- scen- 
ery ; the great hills on that side appearing close, to the 
water's edge, and after descending, with headlong slope, 
directly from their rocky and snow-streaked summits 
down into the blue water. Our course lay nearer to the 
northern shore, and all our stopping-places were on that 
side. The first was Cop pet, where Madame de Stael or 
her father, or both, were either born or resided or died, I 
know not which, and care very little. It is a picturesque 
village, with an old church, and old, high -roofed, red- 
tiled houses, the whole looking as if nothing in it had 
been changed for many, many years. All these villages, 
at several of which we stopped momentarily, look de- 
lightfully unmodified by recent fashions. There is the 
church, with its tower crowned by a pyramidal roof, like 
an extinguisher; then the chateau of the former lord, half 
castle and half dwelling-house, with a round tower at 
each corn yr, pyramid topped ; then, perhaps, the ancient 
town-house or Hotel de Ville, in an open paved square ; 
and perhaps the largest mansion in the whole village will 
have been turned into a modern inn, but retaining all its 
venerable characteristics of high, steep sloping roof, and 
antiquated windows. Scatter a delightful shade of trees 
among the houses, throw in a time-worn monument of 



1859.] SWITZERLAND. 243 

one kind or another, swell out the delicious blue of the 
lake in front, and the delicious green of the sunny hillside 
sloping up and around this closely congregated neighbor- 
hood of old, comfortable houses, and I do not know what 
more I can add to this sketch. Often there was an insu- 
lated house or cottage, embowered in shade, and each 
seeming like the one only spot in the wide world where 
two people that had good consciences and loved each 
other could spend a happy life. Half-ruined towers, old 
historic castles, these, too, we saw. And all the while, 
on the other side of the lake, were the high hills, some- 
times dim, sometimes black, sometimes green, with gray 
precipices of stone, and often snow-patches, right above 
the warm sunny lake whereon we were sailing. 

We passed Lausanne, which stands upward, on the 
slope of the hill, the tower of its cathedral forming a 
conspicuous object. We mean to visit this to-morrow ; 
so I may pretermit further mention of it here. We 
passed Yevay aud Clarens, which, methought, was par- 
ticularly picturesque ; for now the hills had approached 
close to the water on the northern side also, and steep 
heights rose directly above the little gray church and vil- 
lage; and especially I remember a rocky cliff which 
ascends into a rounded pyramid, insulated from all other 
peaks and ridges. But if I could perform the absolute 
impossibility of getting one single outline of the scene 
into words, there would be all the color wanting, the 
light, the haze, which spiritualizes it, am. moreover 
makes a thousand and a thousand scenes out of that 
single one. Clarens, however, has still another interest 
forme; for I found myself more affected by it, as the 
scene of the love of St. Preux and Julie, than I have 
often been by scenes of poetry and romance. I read 
Rousseau's romance with great sympathy, when I was 



244 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

hardly more than a boy ; ten years ago, or thereabouts, 
I tried to read it again without success ; but I think, 
from my feeling of yesterday, that it still retains its hold 
upon my imagination. 

Farther onward, we saw a white, ancient-looking group 
of towers, beneath a mountain, which was so high, and 
rushed so precipitately down upon this pile of building 
as quite to dwarf it ; besides which, its dingy whiteness 
had not a very picturesque effect. Nevertheless, this 
was the Castle of Chillon. It appears to sit right upon 
the water, and does not rise very loftily above it. I was 
disappointed in its aspect, having imagined this famous 
castle as situated upon a rock, a hundred, or, for aught 
I know, a thousand feet above the surface of the lake ; 
but it is quite as impressive a fact — supposing it to be 
true — that the water is eight hundred feet deep at its 
base. By this time, the mountains had taken the beau- 
tiful lake into their deepest heart ; they girdled it quite 
round with their grandeur and beauty, and, being able to 
do no more for it, they here withheld it from extending 
any farther; and here our voyage came to an end. I 
have never beheld any scene so exquisite ; nor do I ask 
of heaven to show me any lovelier or nobler one, but 
only to give me such depth and breadth of sympathy 
with nature, that I may worthily enjoy this. It is 
beauty more than enough for poor, perishable mortals. 
If this be earth, what must heaven be ! 

It was nearly eight o'clock when we arrived ; and then 
we had a walk of at least a mile to the Hotel Byron. 
.... I forgot to mention that in the latter part of our 
voyage there was a shower in some part of the sky, and 
though none of it fell upon us, we had the benefit of 
those gentle tears in a rainbow, which arched itself 
across the lake from mountain to mountain, so that our 



1859.] SWITZERLAND. 245 

track lay directly under this triumphal arch. We took 
it as a good omen, nor were we discouraged, though, 
after the rainbow had vanished, a few sprinkles of the 
shower came down. 

We found the Hotel Byron very grand indeed, and a 
good one too. There was a beautiful moonlight on the 
lake and hills, but we contented ourselves with looking 
out of our lofty window, whence, likewise, we had a side- 
long glance at the white battlements of Chillon, not more 
than a mile off, on the water's edge. The castle is wo- 
fully in need of a pedestal. If its site were elevated to a 
height equal to its own, it would make a far better 
appearance. As it now is, it looks, to speak profanely of 
what poetry has consecrated, when seen from the water, 
or along the shore of the lake, very like an old white- 
washed factory or mill. 

This morning I walked to the Castle of Chillon with 

J , who sketches everything he sees, from a wild- 

flower or a carved chair to a castle or a range of moun- 
tains. The morning had sunshine thinly scattered 
through it; but, nevertheless, there was a contiuual 
sprinkle, sometimes scarcely perceptible, and then again 
amounting to a decided drizzle. The road, which is 
built along on a little elevation above the lake shore, led 
us past the Castle of Chillon ; and we took a side-path, 
which passes still nearer the castle gate. The castle 
stands on an isthmus of gravel, permanently connecting 
it with the mainland. A wooden bridge, covered with a 
roof, passes from the shore to the arched entrance ; and 
beneath this shelter, which has wooden walls as well as 
roof and floor, we saw a soldier or gendarme who seemed 
to act as warder. As it sprinkled rather more freely 
than at first, I thought of appealing to his hospitality for 
shelter from the rain, but concluded to pass on. 



246 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

The castle makes a far better appearance on a nearer 
view, and from the land, than when seen at a distance, 
and from the water. It is built of stone, and seems to 
have been anciently covered with plaster, which imparts 
the whiteness to which Byron does much more than jus- 
tice, when he speaks of " Chillon's snow-white battle- 
ments." There is a lofty external wall, with a cluster of 
round towers about it, each crowned with its pyramidal 
roof of tiles, and from the central portion of the castle 
rises a square tower, also crowned with its own pyramid 
to a considerably greater height than the circumjacent 
ones. The whole are in a close cluster, and make a fine 
picture of ancient strength when seen at a proper prox- 
imity ; for I do not think that distance adds anything to 
the effect. There are hardly any windows, or few, and 
very small ones, except the loopholes for arrows and for 
the garrison of the castle to peep from on the sides 
towards the water ; indeed, there are larger windows at 
least in the upper apartments ; but in that direction, no 
doubt, the castle was considered impregnable. Trees 
here and there on the land side grow up against the 
castle wall, on one part of which, moreover, there was a 
green curtain of ivy spreading from base to battlement. 
The walls retain their machicolations, and I should judge 
that nothing had been [altered], nor any more work been 
done upon the old fortress than to keep it in singularly 
good repair. It was formerly a castle of the Duke of 
Savoy, and since his sway over the country ceased (three 
hundred years at least), it has been in the hands of the 
Swiss government, who still keep some arms and ammu- 
nition there. 

We passed on, and fonnd the view of it better, as we 
thought, from a farther point along the road. The rain- 
drops began to spatter down faster, and we took shelter 



1859.] SWITZERLAND. 247 

under an impending precipice, where the ledge of rock 
had been blasted and hewn away to form the road. Our 
refuge was not a very convenient and comfortable one, so 
we took advantage of the partial cessation of the shower 
to turn homeward, but had not gone far when we met 
mamma and all her train. As we were close by the castle 
entrance, we thought it advisable to seek admission, 
though rather doubtful whether the Swiss gendarme 
might not deem it a sin to let us into the castle on Sun- 
day. But he very readily admitted us under his covered 
drawbridge, and called an old man from within the for- 
tress to show us whatever was to be seen. This latter 
personage was a staid, rather grim, and Calvinistic-look- 
ing old worthy ; but he received us without scruple, and 
forthwith proceeded to usher us into a range of most 
dismal dungeons, extending along the basement of the 
castle, on a level with the surface of the lake. First, if I 
remember aright, we came to what he said had been a 
chapel, and which, at all events, looked like an aisle of 
one, or rather such a crypt as I have seen beneath a 
cathedral, being a succession of massive pillars support- 
ing groined arches, — a very admirable piece of gloomy 
Gothic architecture. Next, we came to a very dark com- 
partment of the same dungeon range, where he pointed to 
a sort of bed, or what might serve for a bed, hewn in the 
solid rock, and this, our guide said, had been the last 
sleeping-place of condemned prisoners on the night before 
their executiou. The next compartment was still dus- 
kier and dismaller than the last, and he bade us cast our 
eyes up into the obscurity and see a beam, where the 
condemned ones used to be hanged. I looked and 
looked, aud closed my eyes so as to see the clearer in this 
horrible duskiness on opening them again. Finally, I 
thought I discerned the accursed beam, aud the rest of 



248 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

the party were certain that they saw it. Next beyond 
this, I think, was a stone staircase, steep, rudely cut, 
and narrow, down which the condemned were brought 
to death ; and beyond this, still on the same basement 
range of the castle, a low and narrow [corridor] through 
which we passed and saw a row of seven massive pillars, 
supporting two parallel series of groined arches, like 
those in the chapel which we first entered. This was 
Bonnivard's prison, and the scene of Byron's poem. 

The arches are dimly lighted by narrow loopholes, 
pierced through the immensely thick wall, but at such a 
height above the floor that we could catch no glimpse of 
land or water, or scarcely of the sky. The prisoner of 
Chillon could not possibly have seen the island to which 
Byron alludes, and which is a little way from, the shore, 
exactly opposite the town of Villeneuve. There was 
light enough in this long, gray, vaulted room, to show us 
that all the pillars were inscribed with the names of vis- 
itors, among which I saw no interesting one, except that 
of Byron himself, which is cut, in letters an inch long or 
more, into one of the pillars next to that to which Bon- 
nivard was chained. The letters are deep enough to re- 
main in the pillar as long as the castle stands. Byron 
seems to have had a fancy for recording his name in this 
and similar ways ; as witness the record which I saw on 
a tree of Newstead Abbey. In Bonnivard's pillar there 
still remains an iron ring, at the height of perhaps three 
feet from the ground. His chain was fastened to this 
ring, and his only freedom was to walk round this pillar, 
about which he is said to have worn a path in the stone 
pavement of the dungeon ; but as the floor is now cov- 
ered with earth or gravel, I could not satisfy myself 
whether this be true. Certainly six years, with nothing 
else to do in them save to walk round the pillar, might 



1859.] SWITZERLAND. 249 

well suffice to wear away the rock, even with naked feet. 
This column, and all the columns, were cut and hewn in 
a good style of architecture, and the dungeon arches are 
not without a certain gloomy beauty. On Bonnivard's 
pillar, as well as on all the rest, were many names in- 
scribed ; but 1 thought better of Byron's delicacy and 
sensitiveness for not cutting his name into that very pil- 
lar. Perhaps, knowing nothing of Bonnivard's story, he 
did not know to which column he was chained. 

Emerging from the dungeon-vaults, our guide led us 
through other parts of the castle, showing us the Duke 
of Savoy's kitchen, with a fireplace at least twelve feet 
long; also the judgment-hall, or some such place, hung 
round with the coats of arms of some officers or other, 
and having at one end a wooden post, reaching from 
floor to ceiling, and having upon it the marks of fire. 
By means of this post, contumacious prisoners were put 
to a dreadful torture, being drawn up by cords and pul- 
leys, while their limbs were scorched by a fire under- 
neath. We also saw a chapel or two, one of which is 
still in good and sanctified condition, and was to be used 
this very day, our guide told us, for religious purposes. 
We saw, moreover, the Duke's private chamber, with a 
part of the bedstead on which he used to sleep, and be 
haunted with horrible dreams, no doubt, and the ghosts 
of wretches whom he had tortured and hanged ; likewise 
the bedchamber of his duchess, that had in its window 
two stone seats, where, directly over the head of Bonui- 
vard, the ducal pair might look out on the beautiful scene 
of lake and mountains, and feel the warmth of the blessed 
sun. Under this window, the guide said, the water of 
the lake is eight hundred feet in depth ; an immense pro- 
fundity, indeed, for an inland lake, but it is not very dif- 
ficult to believe that the mountain at the foot of which 
11* 



250 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

Chillon stands may descend so far beneath the water. 
In other parts of the lake and not distant, more than nine 
hundred feet have been sounded. I looked out of the 
duchess's window, and could certainly see no appearance 
of a bottom in the light blue water. 

The last thing that the guide showed us was a trap- 
door, or opening, beneath a crazy old floor. Looking 
down into this aperture we saw three stone steps, which 
we should have taken to be the beginning of a flight of 
stairs that descended into a dungeon, or series of dun- 
geons, such as we had already seen. But inspecting 
them more closely, we saw that the third step terminated 
the flight, and beyond was a dark vacancy. Three 
steps a person would grope down, planting his uncertain 
foot on a dimly seen stone ; the fourth step would be 
in the empty air. The guide told us that it used to be 
the practice to bring prisoners hither, under pretence of 
committing them to a dungeon, and make them go down 
the three steps and that fourth fatal one, and they would 
never more be heard of; but at the bottom of the pit 
there would be a dead body, and in due time a mouldy 
skeleton, which would rattle beneath the body of the 
next prisoner that fell. I do not believe that it was 
anything more than a secret dungeon for state prison- 
ers whom it was out of the question either to set at 
liberty or bring to public trial. The depth of the pit 
was about forty-five feet. Gazing intently down, I saw 
a faint gleam of light at the bottom, apparently coming 
from some other aperture than the trap-door over which 
we were bending, so that it must have been contemplated 
to supply it with light and air in such degree as to sup- 
port human life. U declared she saw a skeleton 

at the bottom ; Miss S thought she saw a hand, but 

I saw only the dim gleam of light. 



1859.] SWITZERLAND. 251 

There are two or three courts in the castle, but of 
no great size. We were now led across one of them, 
and dismissed out of the arched entrance by which we 
had come in. We found the gendarme still keeping 
watch on his roofed drawbridge, and as there was the 
same gentle shower that had been effusing itself all the 
morning, we availed ourselves of the shelter, more espe- 
cially as there were some curiosities to examine. These 
consisted chiefly of wood-carvings, — such as little fig- 
ures in the national costume, boxes with wreaths of foli- 
age upon them, paper knives, the chamois goat, admirably 
well represented. We at first hesitated to make any 
advances towards trade with the gendarme because it 
was Sunday, and we fancied there might be a Calvinistic 
scruple on his part about turning a penny on the Sab- 
bath ; but from the little I know of the Swiss character, 
I suppose they would be as ready as any other men to 
sell, not only such matters, but even their own souls, or 
any smaller — or shall we say greater — thing on Sun- 
day or at any other time. So we began to ask the prices 
of the articles, and met with no difficulty in purchasing 
a salad spoon and fork, with pretty bas-reliefs carved on 
the handles, and a napkin-ring. For Rosebud's and our 
amusement, the gendarme now set a musical-box a-going ; 
and as it played a pasteboard figure of a dentist began 
to pull the tooth of a pasteboard patient, lifting the 
wretched simulacrum entirely from the ground, and 
keeping him in this horrible torture for half an hour. 

Meanwhile, mamma, Miss Shepard, U , and J 

sat down all in a row on a bench and sketched the 
mountains ; and as the shower did not cease, though 
the sun most of the time shone brightly, they were kept 
actual prisoners of Chillon much longer than we wished 
to stay. 



252 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

We took advantage of the first cessation, — though 
still the drops came dimpling into the water that rip- 
pled against the pebbles beneath the bridge, — of the 
first partial cessation of the shower, to escape, and re- 
turned towards the hotel, with this kindliest of summer 

rains falling upon us most of the way In the 

afternoon the rain entirely ceased, and the weather grew 
delightfully radiant, and warmer than could well be 

borne in the sunshine. U and I walked to the 

village of Yilleneuve, — a mile from the hotel, — and 
found a very commonplace little old town of one or two 
streets, standing on a level, and as uninteresting as if 
there were not a hill within a hundred miles. It is 
strange what prosaic lines men thrust in amid the 
poetry of nature 

Hotel de V Angleterre, Geneva, June \^th. — Yesterday 
morning was very fine, and we had a pretty early break- 
fast at Hotel Byron, preparatory to leaving it. This 
hotel is on a magnificent scale of height and breadth, its 
staircases and corridors being the most spacious I have 
seen; but there is a kind of meagreness in the life 
there, and a certain lack of heartiness, that prevented 
us from feeling at home. We were glad to get away, 
and took the steamer on our return voyage, in excellent 
spirits. Apparently it had been a cold night in the 
upper regions, for a great deal more snow was visible 
on some of the mountains than we had before observed; 
especially a mountain called " Diableries " presented a 
silver summit, and broad sheets and fields of snow. 
Nothing ever can have been more beautiful than those 
groups of mighty hills as we saw them then, with the 
gray rocks, the green slopes, the white snow-patches and 
crests, all to be seen at one glance, and the mists and 



1859.] SWITZERLAND. 253 

fleecy clouds tumbling, rolling, hovering about their 
summits, filling their lofty valleys, and coming down far 
towards the lower world, making the skyey aspects so 
intimate with the earthly ones, that we hardly knew 
whether we were sojourning in the material or spiritual 
world. It was like sailing through the sky, moreover, 
to be borne along on such water as that of Lake Leman, 
— the bluest, brightest, and profoundest element, the 
most radiant eye that the dull earth ever opened to see 
heaven withal. I am writing nonsense, but it is because 
no sense within my mind will answer the purpose. 

Some of these mountains, that looked at no such 
mighty distance, were at least forty or fifty miles off, and 
appeared as if they were near neighbors and friends of 
other mountains, from which they were really still farther 
removed. The relations into which distant points are 
brought, in a view of mountain scenery, symbolize the truth 
which we can never judge within our partial scope of 
vision, of the relations which we bear to our fellow-crea- 
tures and human circumstances. These mighty moun- 
tains think that they have nothing to do with one another, 
each seems itself its own centre, and existing for itself 
alone ; and yet to an eye that can take them all in, they 
are evidently portions of one grand and beautiful idea, 
which could not be consummated without the lowest and 
the loftiest of them. I do not express this satisfactorily, 
but have a genuine meaning in it nevertheless. 

We passed again by Chillon, and gazed at it as long as 
it was distinctly visible, though the water view does no 
justice to its real picturesqueness, there being no towers 
nor projections on the side towards the lake, nothing but 
a wall of dingy white, with an indentation that looks some- 
thing like a gateway. About an hour and a half brought 
us to Ouchy, the point where passengers land to take the 



254 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

omnibus to Lausanne. The ascent from Ouchy to Lau- 
sanne is a mile and a half, which it took the omnibus nearly 
half an hour to accomplish. We left our shawls and car- 
pet-bags in the salle a manger of the Hotel Faucon, and 
set forth to find the cathedral, the pinnacled tower of 
which is visible for a long distance up and down the lake. 
Prominent as it is, however, it is by no means very easy 
to find it while rambling through the intricate streets 
and declivities of the town itself, for Lausanne is the 
town, I should fancy, in all the world the most difficult to 
go directly from one point to another. It is built on 
the declivity of a hill, adown which run several valleys or 
ravines, and over these the contiguity of houses extends, 
so that the communication is kept up by means of steep 
streets and sometimes long weary stairs, which must be 
surmounted and descended again in accomplishing a very 
moderate distance. In some inscrutable way we at last 
arrived at the cathedral, which stands on a higher site 
than any other in Lausanne. It has a very venerable 
exterior, with all the Gothic grandeur which arched mul- 
lioned windows, deep portals, buttresses, towers, and pin- 
nacles, gray with a thousand years, can give to architec- 
ture. After waiting awhile we obtained entrance by means 
of an old woman, who acted the part of sacristan, and 
was then showing the church to some other visitors. 

The interior disappointed us ; not but what it was very 
beautiful, but I think the excellent repair that it was in, 
and the Puritanic neatness with which it is kept, does 
much towards effacing the majesty and mystery that be- 
long to an old church. Every inch of every wall and col- 
umn, and all the mouldings and tracery, and every scrap 
of grotesque carving, had been washed with a drab mix- 
ture. There were likewise seats all up and down the 
nave, made of pine wood, and looking very new and neat, 



1859.] SWITZERLAND. 255 

just such seats as I shall see in a hundred meeting-houses 
(if ever I go into so many) in America. Whatever might 
be the reason, the stately nave, with its high-groined roof, 
the clustered columns and lofty pillars, the intersecting 
arches of the side-aisles, the choir, the armorial and 
knightly tombs that surround what was once the high 
altar, all produced far less effect than I could have thought 
beforehand. 

As it happened, we had more ample time and freedom 
to inspect this cathedral than any other that we have 
visited, for the old woman consented to go away and 
leave us there, locking the door behind her. The others, 
except Rosebud, sat down to sketch such portions as 
struck their fancy ; and for myself, I looked at the monu- 
ments, of which some, being those of old knights, ladies, 
bishops, and a king, were curious from their antiquity ; 
and others are interesting as bearing memorials of Eng- 
lish people, who have died at Lausanne in comparatively 
recent years. Then I went up into the pulpit, and tried, 
without success, to get into the stone gallery that runs 
all round the nave ; and I explored my way into various 
side apartments of the cathedral, which I found fitted up 
with seats for Sabbath schools, perhaps, or possibly for 
meetings of elders of the Church. I opened the great 
Bible of the church, and found it to be a French version, 
printed at Lille some fifty years ago. There was also a 
liturgy, adapted, probably, to the Lutheran form of wor- 
ship. In one of the side apartments I found a strong 
box, heavily clamped with iron, and having a contrivance, 
like the hopper of a mill, by which money could be turned 
into the top, while a double lock prevented its being ab- 
stracted again. This was to receive the avails of con- 
tributions made in the church ; and there were likewise 
boxes, stuck on the ends of long poles, wherewith the 



256 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

deacons could go round among the worshippers, con- 
veniently extending the begging-box to the remotest cur- 
mudgeon among them all. From the arrangement of the 
seats in the nave, and the labels pasted or painted on 
them, I judged that the women sat on one side and the 
men on the other, and the seats for various orders of 
magistrates, and for ecclesiastical and collegiate people, 
were likewise marked out. 

I soon grew weary of these investigations, and so did 

Rosebud and J , who essayed to amuse themselves 

with running races together over the horizontal tomb- 
stones in the pavement of the choir, treading remorse- 
lessly over the noseless effigies of old dignitaries, who 
never expected to be so irreverently treated. I put a 
stop to their sport, and banished them to different parts 
of the cathedral; and by and by, the old woman ap- 
peared again, and released us from durance. .... 

While waiting for our dejeuner, we saw the people 
dining at the regular table d'hote of the hotel, and the 
idea was strongly borne in upon me, that the professional 
mystery of a male waiter is a very unmanly one. It is 
so absurd to see the solemn attentiveness with which they 
stand behind the chairs, the earnestness of their watch 
for any crisis that may demand their interposition, the 
gravity of their manner in performing some little office 
that the guest might better do for himself, their decorous 
and soft steps ; in short, as I sat and gazed at them, 
they seemed to me not real men, but creatures with a 
clerical aspect, engendered out of a very artificial state 
of society. When they are waiting on in v self, they do 
not appear so absurd ; it is necessary to stand apart in 
order to see them properly. 

We left Lausanne — which was to us a tedious and 
weary place — before four o'clock. I should have liked 



1859.] SWITZERLAND. 257 

well enough to see the house of Gibbon, and the garden 
in which he walked, after finishing "The Decline and 
Fall " ; but it could not be done without some trouble 
and inquiry, and as the house did not come to see me, 
I determined not to go and see the house. There was, 
indeed, a mansion of somewhat antique respectability, 
near our hotel, having a garden and a shaded terrace 
behind it, which would have answered accurately enough 
to the idea of Gibbon's residence. Perhaps it was so ; 
far more probably not. 

Our former voyages had been taken in the Hirondelle ; 
we now, after broiling for some time in the sunshine by 
the lakeside, got on board of the Aigle, No. 2. There 
were a good many passengers, the larger proportion of 
whom seemed to be English and American, and among 
the latter a large party of talkative ladies, old and young. 
The voyage was pleasant while we were protected from 
the sun by the awning overhead, but became scarcely 
agreeable when the sun had descended so low as to 
shine in our faces or on our backs. We looked earnestly 
for Mont Blanc, which ought to have been visible during 
a large part of our course ; but the clouds gathered 
themselves hopelessly over the portion of the sky where 
the great mountain lifted his white peak; and we did 
not see it, and probably never shall. As to the meaner 
mountains, there were enough of them, and beautiful 
enough ; but we were a little weary, and feverish with 

the heat I think I had a head-ache, though it is 

so unusual a complaint with me, that I hardly know it 
when it comes. We were none of us sorry, therefore, 
when the Eagle brought us to the quay of Geneva, only 
a short distance from our hotel 

To-day I wrote to Mr. Wilding, requesting him to 
secure passages for us from Liverpool on the 15th of 

Q 



258 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1859. 

next month, or 1st of August. It makes my heart thrill, 
half pleasantly, half otherwise ; so much nearer does this 
step seem to bring that home whence I have now been 
absent six years, and which, when I see it again, may 
turn out to be not my home any longer. I likewise 
wrote to Bennoch, though I know not his present ad- 
dress ; but I should deeply grieve to leave England with- 
out seeing him. He and Henry Bright are the only two 
men in England to whom I shall be much grieved to bid 
farewell ; but to the island itself I cannot bear to say 
that word as a finality. I shall dreamily hope to come 
back again at some indefinite time ; rather foolishly per- 
haps, for it will tend to take the substance out of my life 
in my own land. But this, I suspect, is apt to be the 
penalty of those who stay abroad and stay too long. 

HAVRE. 

Hotel Wheeler, June 22d. — We arrived at this hotel 
last evening from Paris, and find ourselves on the borders 
of the Petit Quay Notre Dame, with steamers and boats 
right under our windows, and all sorts of dock -business 
going on briskly. There are barrels, bales, and crates 
of goods; there are old iron cannon for posts; in short, 
all that belongs to the Wapping of a great seaport. 
.... The American partialities of the guests [of this 
hotel] are consulted by the decorations of the parlor, in 
which hang two lithographs and colored views of New 
York, from Brooklyn and from Weehawken. The 
fashion of the house is a sort of nondescript mixture of 
Frank, English, and American, and is not disagreeable 
to us after our weary experience of Continental life. 
The abundance of the food is very acceptable in compar- 
ison with the meagreness of French and Italian meals; 



1859.] ENGLAND. 259 

and last evening we supped nobly on cold roast beef and 
ham, set generously before us, in the mass, instead of 
being doled out in slices few and thin. The waiter has 
a kindly sort of manner, and resembles the steward of a 
vessel rather than a landsman ; and, in short, everything 
here has undergone a change, which might admit of very 
effective description. I may now as well give up all at- 
tempts at journalizing. So I shall say nothing of our 

journey across Trance from Geneva To-night we 

shall take our departure in a steamer for Southampton, 
whence we shall go to London; thence, in a week or 
two, to Liverpool ; thence to Boston and Concord, there 
to enjoy — if enjoyment it prove — a little rest and a 
sense that we are at home. 

[More than four months were now taken up in writing 
" The Marble Eaun," in great part at the seaside town 
of Redcar, Yorkshire, Mr. Hawthorne having concluded 
to remain another year in England, chiefly to accomplish 
that romance. In Redcar, where he remained till Sep- 
tember or October, he wrote.no journal, but only the 
book. He then went to Leamington, where he finished 
" The Marble Faun " in March, and there is a little jour- 
nalizing soon after leaving Redcar. — Ed.] 

ENGLAND. 

Leamington, November \Wh, 1859. — J and I 

walked to Lillington the other day. Its little church 
was undergoing renovation when we were here two 
years ago, and now seems to be quite renewed, with the 
exception of its square, gray, battlemented tower, which 
lias still the aspect of unadulterated antiquity. On Sat- 
urday J and I walked to Warwick by the old road, 

passing over the bridge of the Avon, within view of the 



260 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1860. 

castle. It is as fine a piece of English scenery as exists 
anywhere, — the qniet little river, shadowed with droop- 
ing trees, and, in its vista, the gray towers and long line 
of windows of the lordly castle, with a picturesquely 
varied outline ; ancient strength, a little softened by 

decay 

The town of Warwick, I think, has been considerably 
modernized since I first saw it. The whole of the cen- 
tral portion of the principal street now looks modern, 
with its stuccoed or brick fronts of houses, and, in many 
cases, handsome shop windows. Leicester Hospital and 
its adjoining chapel still look venerably antique; and so 
does a gateway that half bestrides the street. Beyond 
these two points on either side it has a much older 
aspect. The modern signs heighten the antique im- 
pression. 

February 5tk, 1860. — Mr. and Mrs. Bennoch are stay- 
ing for a little while at Mr. B 's at Coventry, and 

Mr. B Called upon us the other day, with Mr. Ben- 
noch, and invited us to go and see the lions of Coventry ; 

so yesterday U and I went. It was not ray first 

visit, therefore I have little or nothing to record, unless 

it were to describe a ribbon-factory into which Mr. B 

took us. But I have no comprehension of machinery, 
and have only a confused recollection of an edifice of four 
or five stories, on each floor of which were rows of huge 
machines, all busy with their iron hands and joints in 
turning out delicate ribbons. It was very curious and 
unintelligible to me to observe how they caused different 
colored patterns to appear, and even flowers to blossom, 
on the plain surface of a ribbon. Some of the designs 
were pretty, and I was told that one manufacturer pays 
£ 500 annually to French artists (or artisans, for I do 



I860.] ENGLAND. 261 

not know whether they have a connection with higher 
art) merely for new patterns of ribbons. The English 
find it impossible to supply themselves with tasteful pro- 
ductions of this sort merely from the resources of English 
fancy. If an Englishman possessed the artistic faculty 
to the degree requisite to produce such things, he would 
doubtless think himself a great artist, and scorn to devote 
himself to these humble purposes. Every Frenchman is 
probably more of an artist than one Englishman in a 
thousand. 

We ascended to the very roof of the factory, and gazed 
thence over smoky Coventry, which is now a town of 
very considerable size, and rapidly on the increase. The 
three famous spires rise out of the midst, that of St. 
Michael being the tallest and very beautiful. Had the 
day been clear, we should have had a wide view on all 
sides ; for Warwickshire is well laid out for distant pros- 
pects, if you can only gain a little elevation from which 
to see them. 

Descending from the roof, we next went to see Trinity 
Church, which has just come through an entire process 
of renovation, whereby much of its pristine beauty has 
doubtless been restored ; but its venerable awfulness is 
greatly impaired. We went into three churches, and 
found that they had all been subjected to the same pro- 
cess. It would be nonsense to regret it, because the 
very existence of these old edifices is involved in their 
being renewed ; but it certainly does deprive them of a 
great part of their charm, and puts one in mind of wigs, 
padding, and all such devices for giving decrepitude the 
aspect of youth. In the pavement of the nave and aisles 
there are worn tombstones, with defaced inscriptions, and 
discolored marbles affixed against the wall; monuments, 
too, where a mediaeval man and wife sleep side by side 



262 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1860. 

on a marble slab ; and other tombs so old that the in- 
scriptions are quite gone. Over an arch, in one of the 
churches, there was a fresco, so old, dark, faded, and 
blackened, that I found it impossible to make out a 
single figure or the slightest hint of the design. On the 
whole, after seeing the churches of Italy, I was not great- 
ly impressed with these attempts to renew the ancient 
beauty of old English minsters; it would be better to 
preserve as sedulously as possible their aspect of decay, 
in which consists the principal charm 

On our way to Mr. B 's house, we looked into the 

quadrangle of a charity-school and old men's hospital, 
and afterwards stepped into a large Roman Catholic 
church, erected within these few years past, and closely 
imitating the mediaeval architecture and arrangements. 
It is strange what a plaything, a trifle, an unserious affair, 
this imitative spirit makes of a huge, ponderous edifice, 
which if it had really been built five hundred years ago 
would have been worthy of all respect. I think the 
time must soon come when this sort of thing will be held 
in utmost scorn, until the lapse of time shall give it 
a claim to respect. But, methinks, we had better strike 
out any kind of architecture, so it be our own, however 
wretched, than thus tread back upon the past. 

Mr. B now conducted us to his residence, which 

stands a little beyond the outskirts of the city, on the 
declivity of a hill, and in so windy a spot that, as he 
assured me, the very plants are blown out of the ground. 
He pointed to two maimed trees whose tops were blown 
off by a gale two or three years since ; but the foliage 
still covers their shortened summits in summer, so that 
he does not think it desirable to cut them down. 

In America, a man of Mr. B 's property would take 

upon himself the state and dignity of a millionnaire. It 



I860.] ENGLAND. 263 

is a blessed tiling in England, that money gives a man 
no pretensions to rank, and does not bring the responsi- 
bilities of a great position. 

We found three or four gentlemen to meet us at dinner, 
— a Mr. D and a Mr. B , an author, having writ- 
ten a book called " The Philosophy of Necessity," and is 
acquainted with Emerson, who spent two or three days 
at his house when last in England. He was very kindly 
appreciative of my own productions, as was also his wife, 
next to whom I sat at dinner. She talked to me about 
the author of "Adam Bede," whom she has known 

intimately all her life Miss Evans (who wrote 

"Adam Bede") was the daughter of a steward, and 
gained her exact knowledge of English rural life by the 
connection with which this origin brought her with the 
farmers. She was entirely self-educated, and has made 
herself an admirable scholar m classical as well as in 
modern languages. Those who knew her had always 
recognized her wonderful endowments, and only watched 
to see in what way they would develop themselves. She 
is a person of the simplest manners and character, amia- 
ble and unpretending, and Mrs. B spoke of her with 

great affection and respect. .... Mr. B , our host, 

is an extremely sensible man ; and it is remarkable how 
many sensible men there are in England, — men who 
have read and thought, and can develop very good 
ideas, not exactly original, yet so much the product 
of their own minds that they can fairly call them their 



February Y&th. — . . . . This present month has been 
somewhat less dismal than the preceding ones; there 
have been some sunny and breezy days when there was 
life in the air, affording something like enjoyment in a 



£64 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1860. 

walk, especially when the ground was frozen. It is 
agreeable to see the fields still green through a partial 
covering of snow ; the trunks and branches of the leaf- 
less trees, moreover, have a verdant aspect, very unlike 
that of American trees in winter, for they are covered 
with a delicate green moss, which is not so observable 
in summer. Often, too, there is a twine of green ivy 

up and down the trunk. The other day, as J and 

I were walking to Whitnash, an elm was felled right 
across our path, and I was much struck by this ver- 
dant coating of moss over all its surface, — the moss 
plants too minute to be seen individually, but making 
the whole tree green. It has a pleasant effect here, 
where it is the natural aspect of trees in general ; but in 
America a mossy tree-trunk is not a pleasant object, 
because it is associated with damp, low, unwholesome 
situations. The lack of foliage gives many new peeps 
and vistas, hereabouts, which I never saw in summer. 

March YltJi. — J- and I walked to Warwick yes- 
terday forenoon, and went into St. Mary's Church, to 

see the Beauchamp chapel On one side of it 

were some worn steps ascending to a confessional, where 
the priest used to sit, while the penitent, in the body of 
the church, poured his sins through a perforated auricle 
into this unseen receptacle. The sexton showed us, too, 
a very old chest which had been found in the burial 
vault, with some ancient armor stored away in it. Three 
or four helmets of rusty iron, one of them barred, the 
last with visors, and all intolerably weighty, were ranged 
in a row. What heads those must have been that could 
bear such massiveness ! On one of the helmets was a 
wooden crest — some bird or other — that of itself 
weighed several pounds 



I860.] ENGLAND. 265 

BATH. 

April 23<a?. — We have been here several weeks 

Had I seen Bath earlier in my English life, I might have 
written many pages about it, for it is really a picturesque 
and interesting city. It is completely sheltered in the 
lap of hills, the sides of the valley rising steep and 
high from the level spot on which it stands, and through 
which runs the muddy little stream of the Avon. The 
older part of the town is on the level, and the more 
modern growth — the growth of more than a hundred 
years — climbs higher and higher up the hillside, till the 
upper streets are very airy and lofty. The houses are 
built almost entirely of Bath stone, which in time loses 
its original buff color, and is darkened by age and coal- 
smoke into a dusky gray ; but still the city looks clean 
and pure as compared with most other English towns. 
In its architecture, it has somewhat of a Parisian as- 
pect, the houses having roofs rising steep from their 
high fronts, which are often adorned with pillars, pilas- 
ters, and other good devices, so that you see it to be a 
town built with some general idea of beauty, and not 
for business. There are Circuses, Crescents, Terraces, 
Parades, and all such fine names as we have become 
familiar with at Leamington, and other watering-places. 
The declivity of most of the streets keeps them remark- 
ably clean, and they are paved in a very comfortable 
way, with large blocks of stone, so that the middle of 
the street is generally practicable to walk upon, although 
the sidewalks leave no temptation so to do, being of 
generous width. In many alleys, and round about the 
abbey and other edifices, the pavement is of square 
flags, like those of Florence, and as smooth as a palace 
floor. On the whole, I suppose there is no place in 

^OL. II. 12 



Z66 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1860. 

England where a retired man, with a moderate income, 
could live so tolerably as at Bath; it being almost a 
city in size and social advantages ; quite so, indeed, if 
eighty thousand people make a city, — and yet having 
no annoyance of business nor spirit of worldly struggle. 
All modes of enjoyment that English people like may be 
had here; and even the climate is said to be milder 
than elsewhere in England. How this may be, I know 
not ; but we have rain or passing showers almost every 
day since we arrived, and I suspect the surrounding hills 
are just about of that inconvenient height, that keeps 
catching clouds, and compelling them to squeeze out their 
moisture upon the included valley. The air, however, 

certainly is preferable to that of Leamington 

Tli ere are no antiquities except the abbey, which has 
not the interest of many other English churches and 
cathedrals. In the midst of the old part of the town 
stands the house which was formerly Beau Nash's resi- 
dence, but which is now part of the establishment of an 
ale-merchant. The edifice is a tall, but rather mean- 
looking, stone building, with the entrance from a little 
side court, which is so cumbered with empty beer-barrels 
as hardly to afford a passage. The doorway has some 
architectural pretensions, being pillared and with some 
sculptured devices — whether lions or winged heraldic 
monstrosities I forget — on the pediment. Within, there 
is a small entry, not large enough to be termed a hall, 
and a staircase, with carved balustrade, ascending by 
angular turns and square landing-places. For a long 
course of years, ending a little more than a century ago, 
princes, nobles, and all the great and beautiful people of 
old times, used to go up that staircase, to pay their re- 
spects to the King of Bath. On the side of the house 
there is a marble slab inserted, recording that here he 



1860] ENGLAND. 267 

resided, and that here he died in 1767, between eighty 
and ninety years of age. My first acquaintance with 
him was in Smollett's " Roderick Random," and I have 
met him in a hundred other novels. 

His marble statue is in a niche at one end of the 
great pump-room, in wig, square-skirted coat, flapped 
waistcoat, and all the queer costume of the period, still 
looking ghost-like upon the scene where he used to be 
an autocrat. Marble is not a good material for Beau 
Nash, however ; or, if so, it requires color to set him off 
adequately 

It is usual in Bath to see the old sign of the checker- 
board on the doorposts of taverns. It was originally a 
token that the game might be played there, and is now 
merely a tavern-sign. 

LONDON. 

31 Hertford Street, May/air, May \Uh, 1860. —I 
came hither from Bath on the 14th, and am staying with 
my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Motley. I would gladly jour- 
nalize some of my proceedings, and describe things and 
people ; but I find the same coldness and stiffness in my 
pen as always since our return to England. I dined will) 
the Motleys at Lord Dufferin's, on Monday evening, and 
there met, among a few other notable people, the Hon- 
orable Mrs. Norton, a dark, comely woman, who doubt- 
less was once most charming, and still has charms, at 
above fifty years of age. In fact, I should not have taken 
her to be greatly above thirty, though she seems to use 
no art to make herself look younger, and talks about her 
time of life, without any squeamishness. Her voice is 
very agreeable, having a sort of muffled quality, which is 
excellent in woman. She is of a very cheerful temper- 
ament, and so has borne a great many troubles without 



268 FRENCH AND ITALIAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1860. 

being destroyed by them. But I can get 110 color into 
my sketch, so shall leave it here. 

London, May Ylth. [From a letter.] — Affairs succeed 
each other so fast, that I have really forgotten what I did 
yesterday. I remember seeing my dear friend, Henry 
Bright, and listening to him, as we strolled in the Park, 
and along the Strand. To-day I met at breakfast Mr. 
Field Talfourd, who promises to send you the photograph 
of his portrait of Mr. Browning. He was very agreeable, 
and seemed delighted to see me again. At lunch, we 
had Lord Dufferin, the Honorable Mrs. Norton, and Mr. 
Sterling (author of the " Cloister Life of Charles V."), 
with whom we are to dine on Sunday. 

You would be stricken dumb, to see how quietly I 
accept a whole string of invitations, and what is more, 
perform my engagements without a murmur. 

A German artist has come to me with a letter of in- 
troduction, and a request that I will sit to him for a 
portrait in bas-relief. To this, likewise, I have assented ! 
subject to the condition that I shall have my leisure. 

The stir of this London life, somehow or other, has 
done me a wonderful deal of good, and I feel better than 
for months past. This is strange, for if I had my choice, 
I should leave undone almost all the things 1 do. 

I have had time to see Bennoch only once. 

[This closes the European Journal. After Mr. Haw- 
thorne's return to America, he published "Our Old 
Home," and began a new romance, of which two chap- 
ters appeared in the Atlantic Monthly. But the break- 
ing out of the war stopped all imaginative work with 
him, and all journalizing, until 1862, when he went to 
Maine for a little excursion, and began another journal, 
from which I take one paragraph, giving a slight note of 



1862.] AMERICA. 269 

his state of mind at an interesting period of his country's 
history. — Ed.] 

West Gouldsborough, August 15 th, 1862. — It is a "week 

ago, Saturday, since J and I reached this place, 

.... Mr. Barney S. Hill's. 

At Hallowell, and subsequently all along the route, 
the country was astir with volunteers, and the war is all 
that seems to be alive, and even that doubtfully so. 
Nevertheless, the country certainly shows a good spirit, 
the towns offering everywhere most liberal bounties, and 
every able-bodied man feels an immense pull and press- 
ure upon him to go to the war. I doubt whether any 
people was ever actuated by a more genuine and disin- 
terested public spirit ; though, of course, it is not unal- 
loyed with baser motives and tendencies. We met a 
train of cars with a regiment or two just starting for 
the South, and apparently in high spirits. Everywhere 
some insignia of soldiership were to be seen, — bright 
buttons, a red stripe down the trousers, a military cap, 
and sometimes a round-shouldered bumpkin in the entire 
uniform. They require a great deal to give them the as- 
pect of soldiers ; indeed, it seems as if they needed to 
have a good deal taken away and added, like the rough 
clay of a sculptor as it grows to be a model. The whole 
talk of the bar-rooms and every other place of intercourse 
was about enlisting and the war, this being the very 
crisis of trial, when the voluntary system is drawing to 
an end, and the draft almost immediately to commence. 



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